To Teach is To Learn
by CalamityBandersnatch
Summary: Veranda Erickson was an ordinary woman leading an ordinary life until the vacation-from-hell threw her into the company of the extraordinary Sherlock Holmes. She can see the man he's hiding from the world, but will the circumstances that brought them together tear them apart before she can help him find his truth and save herself in the process? Now rated T after rewritten ending.
1. Welcome Wagon

**AN: OK...This story has a mind of it's own and I am but the conduit through which it wends its way onto the internet. ****My original idea was to attempt a cogent exploration of BBC Sherlock's emotional growth over the series and it included a liberal dose of adult situations. Now that the plot is winding down, those graphic scenes make absolutely no sense in the context of my attempts to write realistic characterisations.**

**So, I have completely deconstructed the last few chapters and torn out all the adult content. It fits pretty nicely into the sequels, though. Yes, sequels...with an 's'. I'm sorry. *shrugs helplessly* That just..._happened_.**

**Therefore, I am kicking this down to a 'T' from an 'M' because it doesn't even have any strong language or violence or...much of anything, really...because I've only rewritten the chapters I haven't posted yet. I apologise to the few hardy folks who have been reading it so far if they were hoping that there would eventually be a payoff.**

**Anyway, I still implore anyone with a minute or two to spare...please leave me some feedback.**

Thursday evening, about 9 pm...

"You wear an engagement ring, but you aren't engaged to anyone," stated a pleasant-sounding British gentleman.

Veranda looked up from her phone and just blinked at him over her reading glasses. She had always loved a posh English accent but his warm baritone made it altogether irresistible. The young man behind it wasn't so bad either. His eyes were slightly too far apart, but they were set over a wicked pair of cheekbones. She'd always been told she had impressive bone structure, but it didn't hold a candle to his.

He continued, "Your plane was delayed and the group you were to meet up with is not here. Your phone, despite your carrier's multiple soothing reassurances, is not working. You are frightened and considering simply buying a ticket back to America, even though you have been looking forward to this holiday."

"Well," she said bitterly, "I'm certainly not here for the World Poker Tournament." She shoved her glasses on top of her head and frowned with distrust as she looked him up and down. He cut an impressive figure in a long, dark ulster over a modern-cut suit. It looked expensive...hell, _he_ looked expensive...and far too aristocratic to be bothering someone like her. "How did you know about my ring?"

He looked out past the baggage carousels, waved dismissively and said, "You don't think about anyone when you adjust it. Yet, it still signifies something to you…" He looked back to her and his blue eyes locked onto hers.

_Limpid_ blue eyes, she thought and then mentally scratched through. Somehow the word was properly descriptive, but it didn't seem right. It sounded like a portmanteau of limp and insipid; a wholly inappropriate adjective for the emphatic way he was staring at her. It was like he was trying to read the inscription off the side of her soul.

She wrenched her gaze back down to her troublesome phone and said, "I suppose you're either the greeting committee for the Greater London Society of Serial Killers or you are really, really bored while waiting for a friend."

He finally smiled and she realized he might not be quite as young as she first thought. Perhaps it was his haircut...it was somewhat long and made the most of his dark auburn curls. It was boyish and a bit unbecoming of a gentleman, even though she had an abrupt and fearsome desire to run her fingers through it. She twitched spastically at the image in her mind's eye. Where the hell did that come from? She didn't tend to daydream about men anymore. It wasn't worth the effort...she was probably old enough to be his mother, anyway. People might constantly mistake her for a prematurely grey 40, but the fact remained she was a still-prematurely grey 50 and should be acting her age.

He held out his right hand to shake and said, "Sherlock Holmes. Pleased to meet you…Veranda Erickson of Phoenix, Arizona."

She gave him her best business-style handshake and said, "Charmed, I'm sure. You read the sticker on my luggage, but I'm not from Phoenix."

He narrowed his eyes and said, "What about your luggage tag?"

She shrugged. "I moved to Flagstaff from Phoenix a couple years ago."

He took a step back and looked at her with a solemn and detached look in his eyes. "Your long-time lover died and you had to get away even though you despise change. You've worn the fake engagement ring for years longer, though. What did he think of that?" Her eyes widened and he intently tried to catch them, but she focused on the bridge of his nose instead.

The unbidden thoughts of how attractive he was were starting to form a raucous little conga line circling around her brain and she blushed as the pattern in the carpet suddenly became intensely interesting. Mumbling indistinctly, she said "He didn't care." She looked back up. "How did you know he was dead?"

He tilted his head and with a wry smile said, "You wouldn't travel alone if you didn't have to."

"He could have left me? Or I him?" She was starting to sense that it was a game to him.

"You don't have the lingering bitterness of a woman who has been left for a romantic rival…at your age…your age…you're much older than you look." He was appraising her carefully again and again her cheeks warmed with embarrassment.

She found she was tensely perched on the edge of the bench and surreptitiously tried to relax and sit back, but he started chuckling quietly. She stood up suddenly and found herself essentially eye-to-eye with the mysterious Mr. Holmes. She was only 5'8", but she had on her favorite boots with 3" heels. Between his willowy build and the sweeping coat, he appeared much taller than 6'.

"I've got to get going. My friends have to be at the hotel by now and they're going to be wondering what's happened to me." She didn't feel very confident and she knew it showed.

Apparently accepting the brush-off, Sherlock stepped out past her and said, "John! I need to use your phone."

Veranda turned to look behind her and saw a sandy-haired man, some years older and a good deal shorter than Sherlock, wearily walking toward them. He was chaffing under his messenger bag and obviously irritated with Sherlock's greeting.

John stopped next to Veranda as he eyed her warily and nodded politely before he began fishing in his shoulder bag for his phone. "When are you going to just get a second phone, Sherlock?"

"Why, when I can use yours?"

John shook his head as he powered his phone up. "Why don't you use hers?"

Sherlock looked a bit startled as he seemed to remember Veranda. "Oh, I suppose I should introduce you. Veranda Erickson, this is my flatmate Dr. John Watson. John, this is Veranda Erickson. An American...lady...that I've just been speaking with."

Sherlock busied himself with a text on John's phone as John shook Veranda's hand. "Pleased to meet you...Veranda. That's a bit of a strange name, isn't it?"

She was accustomed to people's comments and offered him her handy rejoinder, "My father was an architect and my mother was an interior decorator. I nearly got named Ramada."

John smiled and said, "Well, they're both a damn-sight better than porte cochere."

Sherlock brusquely handed the phone back to John. "We'd better be off."

John nodded at Veranda again and said, "It was nice meeting you. Enjoy your visit." He began walking away, but pulled up short when Sherlock didn't follow him.

"Oh, she's coming with us," Sherlock stated as if he were shocked that John hadn't already surmised as much.

Both John and Veranda looked at Sherlock in amazement and said in unison, "What?"

"Well, we can't simply leave her here, can we?" He looked incredulously at both of them.

Veranda shook her head. "I can take care of myself. I just have to get to the hotel."

Sherlock said gravely, "There is a gentleman over there who has taken a keen interest in you, Veranda. I don't know what he might be planning, but I doubt it would be pleasant."

She looked behind her and blanched. She had no idea who he was, but he was definitely scowling fiercely at their trio over the top of his newspaper. Sherlock and John looked like a vastly less dangerous option. "I don't know him," she said under her breath as she turned back.

"I didn't believe you would keep company such as that," Sherlock quipped. Will you accompany us back to our flat and stay for the night? The sofa is quite comfortable and I can assure your safety. We are both perfect gentleman."

John snorted derisively. "That's My…" Sherlock's incredibly fake smile shut him down instantly. He glared back as he tried to figure out what the elder Holmes' brother had done to merit being ignored so thoroughly. A second ticked by before the realization dawned that he was Mycroft and that was enough in Sherlock's mind. He began again, "That's my…thoughts exactly. He's perfect and I'm a gentleman. I don't have any objection. If you're lost, I'm sure we can help you out."

"I appreciate the offer, but I really can't impose on complete strangers. I need to get my phone working…I need to find my friends." She was shifting from foot to foot and her voice was rising in pitch with almost every word. Suddenly it dropped to a whisper, "I don't know where to start…"

"It's very simple." Sherlock made a 'ladies first' gesture. "Accompany us to the flat, get some sleep and start in the morning. It's late and you can't accomplish anything in the condition you're in currently."

John chimed in, his own bone-weariness a testament to how tired she must be after a much longer flight. "Yes, do. There's no point in arguing because Sherlock always wins."

Veranda hung her head before looking up at them both. "Thank you," she said simply before taking up the handle of her suitcase to follow Mutt and Jeff.

They had neared the exit when Sherlock suddenly announced, "Congratulations on the weight loss, by the way."

Veranda squeaked "What?" and was echoed seconds later by John.

Sherlock threw his hands up. "Really. I feel so alone sometimes. It's plain to see that all your clothes are new and a woman as practical as you would not buy an entire new wardrobe if it wasn't absolutely necessary."

"I could have lost everything in a fire...or...or...something..." she trailed off, knowing the jig was up.

"Your coat is several years old, your boots are nearing 20 and your suitcase has many miles on it." Sherlock smiled cryptically and continued, "Unless you had a house fire while you were away..."

Veranda sputtered, "How the hell do you know how old my boots are?"

Sherlock smiled more broadly and said, "While you did well and bought quality footwear in a timeless style...you did just have them into a cobbler to spruce them up...for your European holiday...because you are a practical woman who dislikes change." He set his shoulders and walked a little faster to indicate that the conversation was over.

Veranda looked at John, who simply rolled his eyes. "Get used to it. He's always like this."

As they walked out the door she remembered her rental car reservation. Sherlock waved it off when she mentioned it. "We live in a very congested area downtown. A car would cause far more trouble than it would be worth. You can get a hire car later if you wish, but for now we will use our normal mode of transport. Taxi!" He stepped off the curb and flagged down a cab.

Sherlock opened the rear door and flung himself to the far side of the forward-facing seat. John bowed slightly at Veranda and took her suitcase. He more-or-less threw it at Sherlock and then gracefully bade her to get in after it. She chose the rear-facing seat and John took the seat opposite her after closing the door. Sherlock appeared to already be long-lost in thought so John told the cabbie, "221B Baker Street, please."

Veranda was exhausted and the cab ride quickly lulled her to sleep. No sooner had her chin sunk to her chest when Sherlock turned to John and said, "Now about the…" He quickly trailed off when John began gesticulating wildly with much finger-slashing against his throat. He mouthed "Be quiet," and pointed to Veranda. Sherlock seemed taken aback, but he shrugged and sank back into his seat.

She awoke with a start when John opened the door and got out. Sherlock nearly stepped on her in his exit and she scrambled out after him. He was already inside and up the staircase while she followed John and tried to figure out a polite way to get her suitcase back from him. They were greeted in the foyer by a somewhat frumpy late middle-aged woman who cooed something unintelligible to John. He seemed frustrated and replied with just a few words that Veranda strained to hear, but couldn't understand. The lady tittered and went back from whence she came. John said, "That's our landlady, Mrs. Hudson."

Veranda asked, "How long has her husband been dead?"

John's eyes widened with a slight look of horror. "What makes you think he's dead?"

She shrugged and said, "She was married for so long that she came to define herself as a Mrs., but she doesn't wear a wedding ring. If she was divorced, she would prefer to be addressed by her first name rather than be reminded of her failed marriage. Though, I dare say, his death didn't cause her much grief."

John felt his stomach sink. "Why is that?"

Veranda shook her head slowly. "She'd still be wearing her wedding ring…and possibly his too, if she really was sad that he was gone." John groaned audibly and slowly climbed the stairs with Veranda's suitcase loudly bouncing off of each tread. Veranda, timid and flustered, brought up the rear.

John opened the door to the flat for her and said, "Welcome to our humble abode. Blame Sherlock if you don't like the decorating scheme." She smiled wanly and edged inside. Sherlock was already engrossed in his laptop and paid neither of them any mind.

John put down Veranda's luggage and his own bag before walking in front of Sherlock. He crossed his arms and cleared his throat. Sherlock slowly glanced up at him when he said, "I think I've found your sister."

Sherlock was phlegmatic. "Mother would be surprised. Have you told Mycroft yet?"

John threw up his hands and stomped his foot. "Sod it all!" He picked up his bag and stomped up the stairs to his bedroom. Sherlock looked askance at Veranda as she stood in shock.

"I only asked him a question. Honestly."

Sherlock shrugged nonchalantly. "Perhaps he is just overly-tired, as I'm sure you are." He gestured over the screen at the sofa and then pointed through the kitchen. "The loo is the first door down the hall." He returned to his own world and left Veranda alone even as they were in the same room. She sank onto the couch and was asleep before she could wonder at his odd ways.

It was well after midnight and Sherlock was not asleep. He was in one of his trances, but definitely not asleep. His eyes snapped open as he heard John's bed upstairs creak as he rolled over. Sometimes he envied John and although he had told him as much, John never seemed to believe him. Was ignorance really bliss? He knew that was an answer he would never have.

"Seven American Tourists Go Missing From LHR," read the hyperlink. Sherlock clicked on it as he peeked at the woman passed out on his sofa. It was a mere blurb which stated simply that seven Americans were traveling as a group and had disappeared from Heathrow after they made it through Customs and Immigration with no issues. The missing persons were Carl and Morgan Carlsson, Marc and Elliot Kettering-Thorpe, Gerry Nilsson, Viktoria Eklund and Veranda Erickson. The two couples' children had reported them missing when their parents had not answered any phone calls, texts or emails after they were supposed to arrive in London. "Missing without a trace," stated the article.

Sherlock looked pensive. "Wrong," he muttered under his breath. There were so many security cameras everywhere these days that there was no way to kidnap 6 people without someone seeing something. Whoever had gotten them knew that and had planned accordingly. Their plot had developed a hole in it, though, and he had pulled Veranda through it at Mycroft's insistence.

He had just begun to ponder how long it would take before the error would be noticed and an attempt to correct it would be made when Veranda groaned and sat up. She unzipped her boots, pulled them off and then carefully zipped them back up before setting them down so they wouldn't fall over. She lay back down, groaned again, turned to face the back of the sofa and promptly fell back asleep.

Sherlock steepled his fingers and briefly retraced the day's events while cataloguing the pertinent facts for later use. He sincerely wished Mycroft had given him something more to work with instead of merely cajoling him into being a babysitter. He was between pressing cases and in danger of getting bored. No one was safe when he was bored. He grinned proudly back at the smiley face he had spray-painted on the wall behind the sofa months ago and then promptly riddled with bullets from John's pistol.

He sighed bitterly at Veranda's sleeping form. 'Don't let her out of your sight and don't let her be murdered' were Mycroft's only instructions. Keep the woman alive...how predictable...how dull. She was here now, though, and for the time-being he had to watch after her even if it rankled him immensely. He supposed he would be too irritated to succumb to his ennui for at least a couple of days, so perhaps it was a small blessing in disguise.

Carefully closing his computer and hearing John's chiding voice in his head, he quietly got up and left for his own bedroom. Once there, he hesitated for a moment before pulling a blanket off his bed and walking back to the sitting room. He spread it over Veranda, but she never stirred. He watched her thoughtfully for another minute before returning to his bedroom and silently shutting the door.


	2. Good Morning Sunshine

Smoke! Fire! Veranda woke up nearly screaming. There was so much smoke and she was trapped! She turned this way and that, but she couldn't get free. It was only after she fell onto the floor with a muffled thud that she realized she was mummified in a blanket and had rolled off the couch. She fought her way loose and sat up as she got ready to run. She was confused why she was still fully dressed, but suddenly thankful for that fact when Sherlock ambled into the living room from the kitchen. He was wearing a blue lab coat, elbow length leather gloves and absurdly over-sized chemical splash goggles. There was a pipette in his right hand and a still-smoking Erlenmeyer flask in his left.

He was looking at her, mildly perturbed at the ruckus she made when a louder noise erupted from upstairs. Veranda watched John come thundering down the stairs with his hideous red and blue plaid flannel robe billowing out behind him. It wrapped around his legs when he skidded to a halt in front of his roommate. "My God! Is the fire out?" he shrieked at Sherlock.

Sherlock looked at him with the same puzzled expression and said, "There was no fire. What is the problem?"

John huffed in irritation. "Why didn't the smoke detectors sound?"

"I disconnected them. They were always alarming for no cause, so I disabled them. They disrupted my thought processes."

"Sherlock. Dammit. They went off nearly every single day for a very valid reason. Someday you are going to burn down Mrs. Hudson's building and she might never forgive you for it."

"Highly unlikely. And speak of the devil..."

The three of them heard slow, sure footsteps making their way to the second floor. They were all staring at the sitting room door when there was brief knock and a 'yoohoo' as Mrs. Hudson cracked it a bit and peeked into the flat. "Boys?" She opened the door more fully and exclaimed, "What the dickens are you up to? I heard a crash...where did all this smoke come from? Sherlock!"

Sherlock said nothing, John looked guilty and Veranda thought she should probably get up off the floor. Her floundering with the blanket caught Mrs. Hudson's attention and she scurried over to the sofa. She offered her hand, but Veranda waved her off and she dragged herself onto the couch seat. "I'm good. Thank you anyway."

Mrs. Hudson turned back to Sherlock and John. "What are you boys doing? Filling the house with smoke and making a lady sleep on the floor. You should have asked to borrow my lie-low."

John held up an index finger to object, but Sherlock beat him to it. "She slept on the sofa. She fell on the floor. There is no room for a lie-low and there is no smoke. I don't know what everyone is so cross about."

"No smoke?" cried three voices in concert.

"Oh, for goodness sake! I can scarcely see my hand in front of my face." Mrs. Hudson walked over to a sitting room window and threw the sash open. It did little to clear the smog in the room, but it did admit a gust of frigid air that set Veranda to shivering miserably in a near instant. No one else seemed to notice or care how the temperature of the room plummeted in seconds. She scrambled to wrap the blanket around herself before she froze to death. She didn't remember it from the night before, but was unspeakably grateful for it in that moment.

Mrs. Hudson opened the second living room window, much to Veranda's dismay. The blue haze finally began to dissipate, although the room cooled to Arctic conditions. "That's much better," Mrs. Hudson beamed. "Would you like some breakfast? I can whip something up for the three of you."

"You're our landlady. Not our housekeeper, Mrs. Hudson." Sherlock turned on his heel and wandered back into the kitchen.

"That's true. However, you two obviously know nothing about having a guest so the least I can do is try to be civilised toward her."

"She is not a guest. She is a client," Sherlock said loudly from the vicinity of his bedroom.

Mrs. Hudson looked uncertainly to John, who shrugged hesitantly. "I don't know. What time is it?"

"Eight Thirty," came the disembodied answer from the far end of the flat.

"Oh, bugger. I need to get to the computer shop as soon as they open. My laptop is making funny noises and I can't afford to have it crash. I hope it's nothing expensive. I'll have to pass on breakfast, Mrs. Hudson. Thank you for the very sweet offer, though." John headed back up to his bedroom.

Veranda really wanted to pipe up and say she could fix his laptop for him, but decided to stay silent. She didn't want to be here any longer than she absolutely had to and tearing into John's computer could take half the day without the proper tools she had at home.

Mrs. Hudson smiled sympathetically at Veranda. "The boys' mothers have a lot to answer for, I'm afraid." She seemed taken aback when she noticed the woman's teeth were chattering. "I reckon the smoke has cleared enough to close the windows. You poor thing...John said you were American. England will be the death of you."

"We should avoid that eventuality." Sherlock strolled back into the sitting room as he finished buttoning his suit jacket over a fresh white shirt. He had lost all his lab gear and styled his hair back into its habitual chestnut waves. The only sign of his previous occupation was the red mark across the bridge of his nose from the goggles. He watched Mrs. Hudson bustle about, his mien dispassionate, before collapsing heavily into his chair and opening his laptop. He pointedly tuned out the two women, especially when Mrs. Hudson tried to engage him in conversation. She gave up quickly and turned her attention to Veranda.

"I'll go make you some tea and toast, Samantha."

"I'm Veranda...and thank you, again."

"That's an...unusual name."

"Stay on task, Mrs. Hudson."

"Oh, Sherlock." She whispered aside to Veranda, "His mother especially!" She departed for her kitchen downstairs and left Veranda with nothing to do except desperately attempt to avoid staring at Sherlock.

It was impossible. He had a mesmerizing presence that dominated the room and drew the eye hopelessly. She furtively watched him as he sat like a waxworks' figurine, absorbed in his computer. She admired his slightly retroussé nose in profile, which helped soften the rest of his sharp facial features. Perhaps Francis Bacon had said it best: 'There is no exquisite beauty…without some strangeness in the proportion.' He had both...in spades...and it made studying him a fascinating pastime.

A few minutes passed before John traipsed down, wearing an Aran sweater and baggy, faded jeans. His shoes were old, but well-kept; the soles were worn in a very specific way that spoke to his odd, slew-footed gait. To Veranda he seemed like the ideal, demure sidekick to the bombastic showman Sherlock. He was short, careworn, practical and appeared to have his head screwed on straight. It was mind-boggling what he was doing hanging around with someone so campy and obviously given to melodrama. Opposites attract and all that, she thought. It was toss-up as to who was Felix or Oscar, though.

Sherlock certainly knew how to make an entrance, but she was becoming all-too-anxious to see his exit. His affectations wore on her nerves. He was gorgeous to look at, but his casually contemptuous demeanor and borderline dictatorial conduct were appalling. She had to admit she saw some of herself from when she was younger in the way he acted and it was almost painful to watch it all play out again. He was trying too hard, but everyone around him seemed to be enabling his behavior rather than patiently helping him to grow out of a phase.

As Veranda mused, Sherlock said, "Date tonight, John."

She hoped she didn't look too shocked. Marc and Elliot were gay...she couldn't have cared less...but Sherlock was too pretty to be batting for the other team. Dammit.

"Yeah." John looked down at his outfit. "But...what? I'm going to get my computer worked on. Oh...it's Friday. That's the giveaway. I always go out on Friday if I have a girlfriend."

Now Veranda hoped she didn't look too relieved.

"You're not wearing your good jeans."

"I...I...uh...wait..."

"And your hair is parted one centimeter farther left than it normally would be."

John closed his eyes and shook his head. "I'm tired. Too tired to deal with you. I'll be back later." He looked pityingly at Veranda balled-up on the sofa with the blanket wrapped around her and pulled up so only her eyes showed. "If you have to kill him...and you will be tempted...cut him up in the bathtub and store the parts in the refrigerator. He'll appreciate the irony." He slipped on his jacket, picked up his computer bag and walked out, where he could be heard speaking quietly with Mrs. Hudson on the stairs.

She elbowed her way into the sitting room with a tray laden with a tea set, a plate of toast and a couple of small jars. She set it down on the coffee table in front of Veranda and began fussing over it, laying out plates and silverware and clucking like a mother hen. The woman was a living stereotype.

"Leave us, Mrs. Hudson," intoned Sherlock. "We are capable of serving ourselves without your overbearing maternal presence."

"Oh! Really, Sherlock. Do you have to be so rude?" She looked to Veranda, who was still barely peeking out of her cocoon. "Will you be all right, my dear? I hate to leave you with such an awful man for a host."

"She's my client. Leave!"

"Oh!" Mrs. Hudson threw her hands up and scuttled back to the safety of downstairs.

Veranda took a moment to recall if she had ever been that monstrous to people and was chagrined to admit that she was. She had a sudden, overwhelming urge to hire a skywriter and apologize to every person she had ever mauled before she got over herself. She began tentatively sniffing at the tantalizing smell of food and cautiously unwrapped. The room had finally achieved a nearly normal temperature so she threw off the blanket and poured herself a cup of tea.

She took a sip. So this was proper English tea? OK. It was fine. It tasted like tea. She had been expecting a more earth-shattering experience, what with all the hell Americans got for their supposed inability to brew a proper cup. Sherlock was still sitting in his chair, looking at her with quiet loathing as if she had just done something crass and vulgar, like attempting to high-five the Queen.

She watched him from over the rim of her teacup. "What? What monumental faux pas has the American heathen committed this time?"

He shook his head so a wave of curls swept across his forehead and nearly into his eyes. Veranda swallowed hard. He was a walking, talking weapon of mass distraction. Too bad he was so difficult. He shook his hair back out of his face as he stood up and walked over to the coffee table. He said nothing, but knelt down and began ceremoniously pouring his own tea. She watched as he delicately dropped in a couple cubes of sugar and added a dollop of milk before daintily stirring it, the silver teaspoon tinkling faintly against the bone china. He then decorously put the spoon down on the saucer and picked the cup up.

Veranda was fixed on his movements and powerless to look away as he brought the cup to his captivating lips with their perfect cupid's bow. He paused for a moment and met her rapt gaze. She turned a most unhealthy shade of red as she sat motionless with her cup poised in mid-air. He rolled his eyes slightly and sipped his tea like the landed gentry he should have been.

Veranda grimaced to herself. _Fool. You're a damn fool._ Her voice not-quite breaking she asked, "No pinky?"

He glanced at her coldly. "No. Holding one's pinky out is a singular act of pretense, practised by only by those who strive for a higher station but lack the wit or wherewithal to actually achieve it."

"Oh." She looked at her own pinky finger, firmly curled against her palm. "So what does that make me?"

"An American. You don't count."

"Oh, gee. Thanks. Thanks a lot."

"I meant you are from a different culture and as such, cannot be held accountable to the standards set by the British."

"Remember that when I do something really uncouth." She pulled a face. "Hey. Wait a minute...you can just get right the hell back off your high-horse mister. We fought a whole war so we wouldn't have to listen to you folks and your supercilious pomp and circumstance." She giggled. "Why do you do what you do?"

"What?"

"Any of it. Acting like a jerk. Insulting innocent bystanders. Telling people what they're doing before they know they're doing it. It's an elaborate minstrel show. It must be exhausting. So why do you do it?"

"I don't understand what you mean."

She gathered up the courage to look him straight in the eye and chewed on her lower lip as they stared obstinately at each other. "No. I know you know and you know I know you know. You know? So just...no. Because I don't want to know."

Sherlock was blinking slowly and his jaw was hanging open in an unseemly manner. He thought he had the mind of a Cray II, but he couldn't follow her at all. It must be the principle of garbage-in, garbage-out.

She plucked a small jar off the tray and struggled to read the label. She held it at arms' length and peered at it uncertainly. Her glasses were in her purse, which was hanging across the room with her coat and she didn't want to go get them. She unscrewed the lid and took a whiff. "Oh! My God! That's...that's...that's not nice! What the hell is this? Vegemite?"

"Close. Marmite."

"Oh, ugh. That's nasty. How do you people eat this stuff?"

"Why do you deep fry everything and smother it in cheese?"

"Cheese is the food of the Gods. And need I remind you that the Scottish invented the deep-fried Mars bar?"

"I refuse to acknowledge that."

"Yech." She put the Marmite down and found the toast was already lightly buttered so she sat back and began eating. She noticed that Sherlock didn't touch the evil, tarry substance either. He folded his lanky frame, cross-legged, on the floor next to the coffee table and they ate in relative silence with only the crunching of toast and the clink of china.

Veranda had her fill and poured herself another cup of tea. Sherlock frowned at her again, but she was growing accustom to it and didn't pay him much mind. "Why do you keep referring to me as a client? Are you a lawyer, a shrink or a gigolo?"

He shot her a withering scowl and promptly changed the subject by asking, "How old are you?"

"What kind of question is that?"

"Not rhetorical. Unlike yours."

"A lady never reveals her true age." Veranda feigned putting her nose up in the air.

"You are a woman. You are not a lady."

"Not really, no." She slumped against the back of the couch. "Is it that obvious?"

"How old are you?"

"I'm 50...nearly 51, actually. How old are you, kid?"

"35. And I answer to no sobriquet...especially 'kid'. It's too familiar and offensive besides."

"Ah ha! I have a found a button, which I will proceed to push repeatedly...should you persist in being a brat."

"You are not my mother."

"And thank God for that! Otherwise I'd have to turn you over my knee and...let's not go there." Veranda hid behind her cup and finished off her tea. "As I am a _client_ and not a guest, am I allowed to take a shower?"

Sherlock flared his nostrils slightly. "Yes. You may find the towels in the linen cupboard beside the bathtub. Please don't use the blue ones."

She nodded slowly and smiled politely. "OK. Awesome. Thank you." She added under her breath, "I think."

Veranda hauled her clothes and train case to the bathroom. She was desperate for the comfort and ritual cleansing of a shower. She peeked in the bathtub and wrinkled her nose slightly. It wasn't nearly as bad as she had imagined, but not as clean as she'd hoped. One bottle did catch her attention and she picked it up with astonishment. _What in the actual hell?_ It was an honest-to-God $50 bottle of shampoo. She knew it existed, but never thought she'd see one in the wild. Who would buy something like this?

She was quite proud that she had left her trailer trash roots far behind and had developed a taste for the finer things in life, but she wasn't a spendthrift. What would two guys…one completely normal and the other…well, not-at-all-normal…be doing with something like this? Maybe it belonged to a girlfriend? She looked around the bathroom and saw only two separate collections of toothbrushes, razors and assorted men's products on different shelves by the sink. The toilet seat was up…the toilet paper wasn't in the holder…basically nothing else looked like a woman had been near this place in months. Mrs. Hudson was obviously _not_ their housekeeper.

Maybe an old girlfriend had left it behind? That made even less sense. It would be like throwing out your Guerlain lipstick because you dropped it in the sink. You would soak that thing in alcohol and do whatever you could to salvage it. Maybe that was just her…perhaps a truly rich bitch who would throw down that sort of cash on shampoo would simply walk away without it. Oh well, bitch's loss was her gain. Now she would finally know whether her dollar store shampoo was better or worse!

/-/-/-/-/-/-/-/-/-/-/-/-/-/-/-/-/

He'd been expecting her to come out looking like a typical American tourist, complete with glaring white trainers. Instead, she was dressed in dark jeans and a navy blue cashmere jumper, which was classic and well-cared-for, but far from new and substantially too large. She wore black German-brand oxfords that had been re-dyed at least once; the overall effect was generic and she wouldn't stand out as long as she stayed off the high street.

She turned to put her toiletries back in her case and he noted, in a scientific sense, that her jeans fit much better than her jumper and they showcased her 'assets'. She was well-preserved for a middle-aged woman. Her sterling silver hair came down to the middle of her back in damp waves. She had it partially pulled-back in a plain hair ornament that looked to be ivory and therefore an expensive antique. It had undoubtedly been inherited for she didn't act like the type of woman who would seek out such frippery. Still...it indicated a sentimental disposition...ugh.

Veranda finished repacking her suitcase and sat down awkwardly on the edge of the couch putting her elbows on her knees and her chin in her hands. She stared at the coffee table even though there was nothing on it to look at and tried to think about what she should do next. Finally she took a deep breath and looked to Sherlock, who was theoretically working on his computer but in reality was watching her with minute interest. She raised one eyebrow, then the other and gave him an odd, death's head grin. That seemed to confuse him a great deal, but she was the one to break the silence. "Can I borrow your computer for a couple of minutes? I need to check my email."

"Did you not bring your own?" Sherlock asked her rather sharply. "A tablet? An Ipod?"

Veranda's eyebrows went back up. "I figured I could do everything I needed on my phone. I am on vacation after all. I only have my e-reader because my phone screen is too damn small." She rubbed her temples and continued, "I really need to get a hold of the gang. I can't just stay here…nice as it is." She smiled limply. "It's a wonder they…Morgan especially…haven't put out an APB on me yet."

Sherlock shook his head slowly and his expression was grim. Veranda could be slow to catch other people's subtext, but he obviously knew far more than he was letting on and it was beginning to piss her off. She glared at him and with a barely contained snarl asked, "What the hell is going on? Client?" She jumped to her feet and threw her hands up, fear mixing with the frustration in her voice. "Who are you? And why the hell am I trusting you?"

Without preamble Sherlock leapt from his seat and said, "Get your coat. We're going to see the Met."

Veranda scrunched her face in confusion. "The what? If anything, I need to talk to the police!"

He had already blazed past her, but she could hear the eye roll in his voice when he replied, "The _Metropolitan Police_. It's Scotland Yard. " He was out on the landing when he added, "Unless that isn't good enough for you?" in a voice fairly dripping with arch sarcasm.

Veranda closed her eyes and pinched the bridge of her nose as she stood, having not moved an inch to follow Sherlock. She sighed loudly enough she hoped he could hear her and then gave in to the base temptation to mouth-off at her imperious host. "Well, excuuuuse me! I don't have to remind you that I am not from around here, do I? I'm a redneck from the woods and wilds of Arizona. It's the back of beyond, for God's sake. Surely you've seen my type on tv? The stupid American tourist that y'all wish was made to take a test before being issued a passport?"

"You possess an iota of self-awareness. That puts you head and shoulders above many." His voice was warm, silky and right next to her ear.

Veranda shuddered and she felt something awful coil up in the pit of her stomach. She told herself it was anxiety, but she knew it was something much worse. He was an arrogant sonofabitch in the finest English tradition...pompous, pretentious and patrician...in a sleek, dark-haired and angularly handsome package with the voice of a siren. He was the worst possible combination for an assault on the senses...more precisely, her common sense. She was way too old to get so bewitched, bothered and bewildered over any man.

All he could ever do was drive up her blood pressure and give her a headache; and yet, there was nothing more she wanted to do than try to make a pass at him. She would fail, obviously, and not only because she was the most romantically inept woman ever foisted on mankind and the absolute worst coquette in the annals of recorded history. She had absolutely no prospects with him. There was no point in trying to hit on him when she'd only come off as an imbecile and she didn't need more help with that. There was nothing to do but ignore her raging hormones and focus on getting caught up to her friends.

So she set her jaw, stared straight ahead and said, "You still haven't explained why I should trust you."

He chuckled quietly and spun so fast the hem of his heavy coat smacked against her shins. "I'm one of the good guys!" He said breezily as he took off down the stairs to the street.


	3. Body Double Trouble

The first few minutes of the cab ride to the police station were spent by Veranda rubbernecking. She exclaimed at each landmark they passed and Sherlock quickly grew tired of her excitement. Apropos of nothing he blurted, "I don't believe 'Morgan' or anyone else you know is in any position to be looking for you."

She stared at him with wide-eyed horror, struck dumb by his words. Her lower lip began to quiver and she began to feel a little faint as what he was implying began to sink in. "If you're one of the good guys...that means there are bad guys. Are you trying to say that they're…dead? How? When? Who? What about me?"

He glanced over at her, his expression unreadable. "I didn't say 'dead'. I do know why your phone is not working and it's fortunate you did not bring your computer. You cannot be allowed to log into your email, nor can you use your bank card. You cannot leave a single digital footprint or whoever indisposed your coworkers will realize you are not among them."

It was getting difficult to hear him over the rush of blood in her ears. She swallowed dryly and murmured, "So they are dead. You're certain? How long have you known?" Tunnel vision set in until all she could see was Sherlock's pale blue eyes watching her with detached pity.

He shrugged and broke her gaze. "Since before you touched down on British soil. I was sent to collect you and thwart those who would have you departed as soon as you arrived. You have attracted the attention of many powerful people. Whether that is good or bad depends on how much you actually know."

"I don't know anything!"

"Not surprising."

"Jesus Christ." Veranda buried her face in her hands. "How many times has your nose been broken, Sherlock?"

"Only once. Are you insinuating that you would like to make an attempt?" He was smirking slightly and looked unconcerned about whether she would actually assault him now or ever.

"No. I'm stating explicitly that you should learn to put your brain in gear before running your mouth. You act like an insolent teenager and it isn't pretty or cute. You should probably give it up before someone kicks your smart ass." She looked up at him with the expression of a nun about to whack one of her pupils across the knuckles with a ruler.

"I'll take that under advisement. We're here."

Veranda rubbed her temples briefly and wondered how she always managed to run into trouble that must have started out to happen to other people.

They began bickering as they walked from the curb toward the entrance under the rotating sign proclaiming _New Scotland Yard_.

"At least you didn't start to cry," Sherlock declaimed.

"I wasn't going to. Crying never fixed anything." Veranda was nearly jogging to keep up with his enormous strides.

"You were about to cry."

"I was not."

"Suit yourself." He gestured gallantly at the door that opened automatically and he ushered her into the lobby.

Sherlock was obviously a well-known personage, as the fresh-faced officer manning the front desk called out to him by name and waved them to go straight back to the office cubicles. Once in the labyrinth they encountered a youngish black woman with a slight overbite and an obvious chip on her shoulder. Veranda was bewildered by her palpable vitriol as the woman looked her up and down with distaste. Finally she sneered at Sherlock, "Freak and the geek. Lovely."

Sherlock sniffed derisively, "Sally Donovan. I am disappointed. As I have told you on a number of occasions, I am not a 'freak'. I am a…"

The woman cut him off. "A high-functioning sociopath. Yes, we're all quite aware of that by now. Follow me. He's waiting for you." She gestured toward the door near the end of the hallway.

Veranda had no idea who this Donovan woman was, but she had gotten onto her wrong side right-quick. "Listen here, lady...and I use that term loosely...ack!" Sherlock had elbowed her in the ribs, quite roughly, but he succeeded in derailing her verbal beat-down before she could get herself in real trouble.

When they got to the conference room, Sherlock grabbed Veranda by the sleeve and dragged her inside. She turned on him with a hiss and said, "Get your hands off me! Who do you think you are? I am sick of being…hello?" At that moment she noticed the man across the table who had just stood up. She tried to switch gears, but ended up wearing a stupid, shy smile as they shook hands. He introduced himself as Detective Inspector Greg Lestrade. She tried to squash the observation that he, too, was damned handsome. _Why here? Why now? Why me?_

The door behind them shut and the woman sat down beside D.I. Lestrade. He gestured to her and said, "Detective Sergeant Sally Donovan, this is…"

"I've read your notes." Donovan looked like she'd rather be anywhere but where she was.

Lestrade looked to her, a flummoxed Veranda, back to her and finally to Sherlock...who was decisively staring into space. Lestrade sighed and shook his head. "Whatever." He waved at the chairs and said, "Sit down. We'll get this over as quickly as possible."

Veranda sat and put both hands on the table. "What is 'this'? What the hell is going on and why do I seem to be the last to know? I got hornswoggled at the airport yesterday by…him," she pointed an accusing finger at Sherlock, "and I am tired of being kept in the dark. How did my friends die?"

Lestrade looked sharply at Sherlock. "Why did you tell her?"

Sherlock replied, "I told her nothing. Hence, her marginally justifiable anger."

Lestrade grimaced. "You'll have to make a formal identification of the bodies before they can be released to the US consulate for repatriation, but we…" He was interrupted by Veranda slamming her head into her hands on the tabletop.

Everyone looked at her in stunned silence. She moaned and seemed to hyperventilate for a few seconds before sitting up straight and visibly trying to stifle her emotions. She was ashen and her voice was shaking when she said, "Please. Don't mind me."

Lestrade looked unconvinced and swallowed loudly before continuing, "We have been keeping the deaths quiet until we have more information…about the decedents, the perpetrators, possible motives…your involvement...not in the murders, of course, just with everyone…in general." He felt awful for Veranda in that moment. Her eyes had gotten wide when it sounded like he was accusing her of being party to the deaths of her friends. His gut instinct told him she had nothing to do with it, which aligned with his implicit trust in what Sherlock had told him earlier about Mycroft's concerns. He was already getting a headache, as tended to happen early and often when he got involved with the Holmes'. However, he had 7 Americans on his hands; 6 were already dead, but this one was still alive and needed to stay that way.

He folded a page back on his legal pad and placed it on the table. "Let's begin with yesterday. Four of your coworkers flew out of Seattle-Tacoma International Airport and two of them departed from Denver International Airport. Your flight originated in Phoenix. Everyone was to meet up at Heathrow?"

Veranda took a deep breath. "Yeah. We all bought tickets that would get us here within an hour of each other. Morgan called me when she checked the flight tracker and saw that my flight was delayed—she wanted to know how late I was going to be. It was only supposed to take an hour to fix the plane, but I ended up sitting around Sky Harbor for 3 hours. They thought they fixed it, but something else went haywire after they pushed back from the gate so they were going to have to ferry in a plane for us. It was going to take, like, six hours so I got myself on a puddle jumper to DFW and rolled the dice by going on standby to get here. Thank God I travel light or I wouldn't have my luggage, what with all the screwing around and transfers."

"Anyway, I left Morgan at least a dozen voice mails. I was even calling poor Gerry, trying to keep him apprised of what was going on. Eventually he and Viktoria got on their plane in Denver and that was the end of that. By the way, Viktoria is...was...just Gerry's girlfriend. She didn't work with the rest of us. Gerry said she was waffling about coming along because she was 5 months pregnant. She finally decided at the last minute to join us."

Lestrade asked, "What did she look like?"

"Oh, she was gorgeous. She's a model, but on hiatus because of the baby. She's pushing 6 foot with long, platinum blonde hair. And her eyes. Good God, they're the brightest blue you've ever seen. Not that you'd have a fashion magazine around here, but if you did, I could show her to you."

Sherlock decided to not mention the fact she was slipping in and out of present and past tense about her deceased companions.

Lestrade jotted a couple of notes down. "Would anyone ever confuse you with her?"

"Maybe if they had the vaguest description ever…like a Caucasian woman about so tall and so wide with long white hair. Maybe from the back? I should be so flattered. She's stunning…and 25 years younger than I am…and famous."

"I've heard enough. I'll be at my desk." Donovan got up and narrowly avoided slamming the door behind her.

Veranda was nonplussed. "What is her problem?"

Sherlock snorted. Lestrade said, "Hmm? Not important. Please, continue."

Veranda rubbed her forehead. "Oy vey. Anyway, I was pretty much beside myself when I got into Heathrow almost 8 hours after everyone else. Then...when my phone wasn't working...I was a gnat's eyebrow away from a complete breakdown. I was about to lose my mind when he," she was pointing at Sherlock, "showed up and was acting very sensible and very British and…I dunno…especially when John got there. Yeah. I followed two complete strangers home. Not very bright, I guess. There was some other angry-looking guy there who seemed to be watching me and it freaked me the hell out. I made a reflexive decision that was poorly considered, if at all, even under dire circumstances."

Sherlock chuckled quietly. Veranda glowered at him askance and he shifted in his seat. He held his hands up placatingly. "Nothing. Nothing at all."

Lestrade waved his pen at Veranda and cleared his throat. "Getting back to matter at hand." He looked down at his notes. "There is video footage of your friends meeting up with each other in Heathrow. You were the only one to not arrive on schedule. The other six are shown getting into a white van, presumably a courtesy shuttle, and leaving the premises. There were four reservations for hire cars. Why would your friends not pick up their cars?"

"They had to be tired as hell, too. Why would they want to drive to the hotel if a van was there to pick them up? If you're exhausted and faced with not only getting the damn car, but also trying to drive on the wrong side of the road…I'd gladly take the shuttle and deal with picking up the car later. All you have to do is call the rental place and tell them what's going on."

"Which no one did."

"That would be…really weird…really out-of-character…for nearly everyone but me. I mean, Morgan is practically OCD. Her contingencies have contingencies…that's what makes her a really great COO. She's got everything under control at all times. Yeah, I blew off changing my rental reservation, but I was already way, way overdue so it would have been automatically canceled anyway and my phone wasn't working besides. Morgan would never have let a detail like that slide voluntarily."

"Did anyone from your party know exactly when you would be arriving?"

"No, not exactly. I got myself on standby with every single flight that was headed in the right direction…Dublin, Orly, Edinburgh…I was kind of desperate. I got an overhead page and I legged it for the gate, where I found a guy had starting throwing up while standing in the boarding queue. They kicked him out, paged me and shoved me in his seat the instant I showed up. They printed out my boarding pass, but I never even saw it. They just looked at my driver's license and away I went. I had no idea what flight number I was on and by the time I found out, I had to turn my phone off so I couldn't call anyone. They knew I would be super late and I figured they would find out I was there when I showed up. I was elated that I was actually going to end up at Heathrow after all."

Lestrade was chewing thoughtfully on the cap of his pen and rereading his notes with some care. Finally he looked Veranda straight in the eye and without malice said, "Not a skeptical lot, are you?"

"I beg your pardon?"

"Getting into random white vans…following strange men home…not the acts of cynical, jaded world travelers, are they? It all seems a bit…naïve…to be perfectly honest."

She shrugged helplessly. "I'm sure whoever brought the van around had a really good story. It's completely plausible that a fancy-schmancy hotel would have livery cars. And even though it hadn't been part of the original plan, it wouldn't have been at-all suspicious. Me? There's just no excuse, I guess. I don't think I'm that gullible or I wouldn't still be alive after all these years. But the way this guy just barnstorms into your life…" She hooked a thumb at Sherlock. "It's over before you know it. He's telling you your life's story and prying into cracks and crevices you thought you'd papered over and he doesn't even know your _name _yet. It's the most disconcerting thing I think I've ever experienced. Couple that with being frazzled and disoriented? I'd have probably tagged along after Jack-the-Ripper, frankly."

"Mmm, yes. He does that." Lestrade looked slightly startled at himself. "The prising business. Not Jack-the-Ripper. Not that we know…yet."

Sherlock somehow managed to make rolling his eyes a full-body movement and sat back with a moue of annoyance distorting his features.

"OK," Lestrade mumbled to himself. "Please, tell me about..." He looked at his previous page of notes. "EMF, LLC. What did you and your coworkers do?"

"We were always arguing because our name was a huge misnomer. We engineered fuel cells. Our name implied we made electric motors or, God help us, electric cars. Gerry insisted on something short and punchy, even if it was wrong. That's what CFO's do, I guess. Beancounters. He was a good guy, but completely non-technical. He had really nice hair."

"What was your title?"

"Lackey? I didn't have one. I worked on the human interface, documentation, procurement, suppliers, prototyping, mockups, graphic design...all that sort of stuff. If it annoyed the engineers or involved other humans, it was my job. I did everything. I was even a low-level code jockey. Whatever they wanted, I did. I loved them like family. They were all I had and I'd have done anything for them." Veranda was blinking rapidly and looking at the ceiling.

Sherlock took an audible breath and sat up a bit straighter.

"Shut up, Sherlock," Veranda said without looking at him.

He slumped back into his chair and crossed his arms in a resigned posture.

Lestrade was rubbing both temples with one hand and seemed to be thinking very hard. "Where were your headquarters? How did you store all your confidential material?"

"We didn't have a proper office. We worked out of the Carlsson's guest house in Bellevue, Washington. That's where all the hush-hush stuff took place. Carl, Marc and Elliot were the engineers and they all converged on Bellevue. The two of us not involved in the actual engineering of the product could be anywhere because what we did wasn't actually 'top secret'. Everything sensitive was handled in person. Sometimes I stayed at my summer house in Astoria, Oregon for months because I was up in Washington so often during some development phases. I didn't really like to stay with them for long periods because...well, I don't really like people. Even people I like, I don't always like...if that makes any sense?"

Lestrade stared at her and then looked at Sherlock. He mouthed, "Are you related?" Sherlock glanced away and wouldn't dignify him with an answer.

He sighed loudly and rubbed his eyes before asking, "Do you have any work materials with you?"

"Hell no! I'm on vacation. We were all on vacation. We were just a bunch of friends going on vacation together. OK, the company was paying for it to celebrate our first big rollout, but it wasn't _for_ work...not as such."

"Roll-out of what?"

"Product." Veranda had folded her hands in her lap.

"What kind of product?"

"Our product...that we produced." She looked to Sherlock for help, but he seemed to be enjoying her sudden discomfiture.

"Is it classified? Was it for the government? These are fuel cells, are they not?" Lestrade's voice had an edge that sounded like the beginnings of annoyance. He'd pull off the kid gloves if he had to.

"It's...it's proprietary. They're...really special kinds of fuel cells. Like, really special. Really...small." She held up her thumb and forefinger about a centimeter apart. "And I don't know anything about them."

"Nothing?" Lestrade wore his disbelief openly.

"At all. Zip. Nada. The only ones I know anything about are the ones we were selling to...I can't tell you that either. But they weren't nearly so special." She made a gesture about the size of a shoebox.

Veranda glared sideways at Sherlock who was watching her closely and with a look of fascination. She knew she was giving away a thousand secrets that her employers would have had a fit over, if they hadn't already been dead. She also knew that her evasion and obfuscation meant nothing to Sherlock; he could see right through her and he was going to make her life more difficult in 5, 4, 3, 2...

"She's lying." Sherlock looked supremely pleased with himself.

_Goddamn him._

Lestrade threw his pen down and leaned back in his chair. "I _know_ that. I don't know about _what_."

"Most of it." Sherlock smirked as he leaned onto the table and laced his fingers together.

Lestrade scrubbed at his eyes again and heaved a loud sigh. He sat up and said, "Ms. Erickson...I'm here to help you. _He's_ here to help you." He pointed across the table at Sherlock. "God help us all. However, we cannot do anything for you if you are not completely open and honest with us. Who do you think is behind all this?"

"That's not the correct line of questioning."

"God dammit, Sherlock! Do you want to run this? Should I just take notes?"

"That won't be necessary." Sherlock turned to Veranda. "Where is your backup hard drive?"

She blinked at him as her eyes grew wide.

His voice was droll as he explained, "Your companions are dead, although we do not currently know by whom. You did not come to grief last night or this morning and you are presently seated at Scotland Yard. Ergo, you are amongst people who do not intend to harm you and, indeed, would like to ascertain who killed your companions so that the wrong-doers may be brought to justice. Your futile attempts to plead ignorance are unproductive to both your interests and ours. I suggest you be more forthcoming."

"I said that already. And with half as many 20£ words." Lestrade sounded legitimately insulted.

Sherlock ignored him. "Where is your backup hard drive, Veranda?"

"In my purse."

"And what's on it?" Sherlock was trying, and failing, to not be condescending.

She looked at the ceiling and blew her bangs up in frustration. "All sorts of stuff. But I swear...to anyone with authority...that there is nothing on there of...particular importance. No formulas, no schematics...not even anything for our patents. Nothing of any use to anyone. Most of it isn't even useful to me."

"Then why do you have it?" Lestrade was back to taking notes, even if Sherlock didn't care.

"Habit? I never..." She pointed at Sherlock for emphasis, "...and I mean never, ever had access to material that was technically crucial to our product. I can tell you who our plastics supplier is and I can give you the MSDS's to a dozen different chemicals; if you can reconstruct something that took a nuclear engineer and two chemical engineers 5 years to develop..."

"Nuclear?" Lestrade interjected.

"Elliot was on a boomer for 10 years..."

"A what?" He wasn't have an easy time of it.

"Ballistic missile submarine, Lestrade. Would any of the others have brought any potentially sensitive material with them, Veranda?" Sherlock was focused on her.

"I really doubt it. The guys...the engineers...were super tight-lipped and rightfully paranoid. There was a lot on the line. I could be sloppy because you couldn't build a Lego block out of what I know. Even at that, the drive is so heavily encrypted that no one but me can get into it."

Sherlock snorted. "It could be broken."

"I don't think so. It isn't commercial software and the friend who wrote it is dead. And before anyone asks...he died of a heart attack two years ago. Anyway, I personally burned...literally a huge bonfire...I burned every damn thing of his, as requested in his will. He had a hobby of figuring out what was wrong with cryptography software and then writing his own. It's like frickin' Fort Knox."

Sherlock sat silently with furrowed brows and his clasped hands tucked under his chin.

Lestrade watched Sherlock thinking for a moment and shrugged. He asked Veranda, "Do you have any idea who could be behind this?"

"Silence! I can't think with you two blathering on." Sherlock was rubbing his temples. Veranda buried her face in her hands and whimpered. Lestrade rolled his eyes, but stayed quiet.

"There must be something...something...no one this organized kills indiscriminately..." Sherlock was mumbling to himself. He pointed violently at Veranda. "You! What do you do?"

"What? I didn't kill them!"

"No! What do you do? For a living? Before these people?"

"I'm a jack-of-all-trades...master of none. I've worked for big corporations, for myself...and everything in between. I've had a thoroughly undistinguished life. My career trajectory looks like a seismograph! I have a B.S. in Electronic Engineering, a B.S. in Industrial Engineering and a couple assorted Associate degrees because I got bored. I'm nobody!"

"Mmmmm." Sherlock was rubbing his temples more determinedly.

"Sherlock?" Lestrade ventured quietly, "Can I tell her what happened?"

"What? Oh, of course."

"Ms. Erickson..." Lestrade paused to choose his words with care. "There have been 4 house fires in America. I would presume they were all set deliberately."

She put her elbows on the table and sat with her chin in her hands, staring unseeing at the table.

"A house in Flagstaff, Arizona exploded. It may have been preceded by an arson-set fire."

Veranda swallowed loudly and looked a bit ashamed. "Yeah...a couple of my hobbies will do that. Oops. Was anyone hurt?" Sherlock was watching her out of the corner of his eye with barely-contained interest.

Lestrade absently tapped his pen on the table. "There were no injuries reported."

"Thank God. I'm glad Shelley, Brandon and Kortsen are all at college. They are OK, aren't they?"

"Who?"

"The kids. Carl and Morgan's kids and Marc and Elliot's son. Are they all right?"

"I believe. I'll have to find out for you. Were they involved in the company?"

"No. Not by a long shot. They're just children. Working for Mommy and Daddy and...Daddies' business was the last thing on their minds."

"Ah, ha! That's it. Of course. It's so simple." Sherlock pointed at Veranda and nearly bopped her on the nose in the process. She recoiled from him.

Lestrade, grown used to Sherlock's theatrics, merely asked, "Would you care to enlighten us?"

"They're collecting the pieces of a puzzle. Then they destroy what's left so it isn't apparent what is missing. Very clever. The engineers encoded something...something incredibly important...and distributed it amongst all of the employees so that no one person held the key. Only they knew what it was, even. And it is useless with even one piece missing..." He jabbed his finger back at Veranda and she was tempted to bite it just to make him stop pointing at her.

"That's simple?" Lestrade's shoulders slumped, defeated.

"Don't be stupid, Sherlock." Veranda was getting angry. These were her friends and employers that he was accusing of being masterminds...of something...probably something not good. She and Sherlock bristled at each other. "What the hell would they be hiding? We had the contract, we had the...product. It was all in the bag. Why would they make it more complicated than it already was? And who the hell do you think is trying to kill us all so they can have a bunch of disconnected data points? Huh? Frickin' genius. My God. Where did you get this guy?" She was enquiring of Lestrade. He held his hands up in surrender and shook his head.

Sherlock was adamant. "It must be. There's no other explanation for a group so focused and well-prepared."

Veranda shot Sherlock an icy glare. "You don't shave with Occam's Razor, do you?"

He scowled and said, "When you have eliminated the impossible, whatever remains, however improbable, must be the truth."

She snarled inchoately and gestured like she wanted to strangle him.

Lestrade looked back and forth between the two of them repeatedly, but it did nothing for his confusion. "Would you mind clarifying your statement, Ms. Erickson?"

She pursed her lips and sighed in resignation. "The simplest, most straightforward scenario is the most likely. Not whatever wild theory Mr. Too-clever-by-half here can spin out of thin air as he wields Crabtree's Bludgeon. Basically, when you hear hoof beats you should think horses and not zebras."

Lestrade nodded slowly and pretended to grasp the concept.

Veranda wheeled on Sherlock and spat, "Why don't you start with the likely? Then you can worm your way around to the impossible? Everything we did was completely above-board and 100 percent legal. But we had competitors. What about them? What about common, everyday industrial sabotage?"

"Why?"

"Why not? It's not any less reasonable than three guys throwing away their life's work on some James Bond super-spy crap."

"Six people have died..."

"And they're gonna kill me! What will it get them?"

"They think they've already killed you! That model woman...they mistook her for you." Sherlock was gesticulating fretfully.

"Oh, God." Veranda folded her arms on the table and laid her head on them. "Oh, God. We've had our falling-outs, but tell me this isn't real."

"The truth..."

"Pffft." She shook her head. "The truth is overrated."

"Nihilist," Sherlock replied dismissively.

Lestrade was staring at his notes sitting on the table. They looked so innocent. How were they at the root of the world's worst headache? He put his head in his hands. Sherlock...Mycroft...and now this Veranda woman...they were the source of his migraine. He was starting to appreciate dead people more and more; they argued less...both with him and each other. He gestured weakly across the table at the man and woman sulking at each other. "You're free to go. I have a place to start. Thank you."

"You do?" Sherlock was attempting to banter with Lestrade, but it came out a bit too sarcastic.

"I do. Leave. Please." He groaned in relief as Sherlock matter-of-factly hauled Veranda out into the hallway...hissing and spitting invectives all the way until they were out of earshot.

**AN: I wrote this whole story primarily as an excuse to berate Sherlock, who I think deserved a drubbing. Of course, the only way to talk to a fictional character is with another fictional character. I really tried to make this whole thing hew as close to canon as possible and maintain the BBC Sherlock characterisations while bending them to my authorial will.**

**Somewhere along the line, I ended up with a plot-like series of contrivances and an OC with her own story to tell. It is slow, it is talky and there are no zombies, vampires, or mystical silliness. I wanted it to be plausible how the characters interact and how the story plays out. I am writing for "realness". I realise this isn't everyone's idea of a good time.**

**However, I would genuinely appreciate if anyone should choose to leave a review and let me know if I'm seriously off-base or just another fanfic writer labouring under delusions of her own writing ability.**

**Bueller? Bueller?**


	4. Wrought Irony

Veranda stared out at the passing London streets with empty eyes. She knew what was coming next and although she realized it was necessary, she still wanted no part of it. They were on their way to the morgue so she could positively identify the bodies of her friends. Sherlock had assured her the pathologist was a kind young woman and that she would make it as painless as possible for her, but she wasn't that concerned about having to be around corpses. Death was the logical conclusion of life, after all. She'd never been bothered about bodies, cemeteries or any of the funereal contortions that people got themselves into.

What she was upset about was trying to figure out which face to put on. She didn't have to fake being sad, because she was. She was almost beside herself with grief, but she still had to be careful. She was feeling abandoned, adrift and very, very sorry for herself. It was that sort of self-pity that she had to be careful to hide. She was supposed to be bereaved for the ending of someone else's life, not for how it disrupted her own. She didn't understand it...they were dead! Why would they care? She'd figured out, quite early on, to keep that attitude to herself. She would always remember how you could have heard a pin drop in the church during her Grandmother's memorial service after she had said those very words. Oops.

So she sat, tears alternately welling-up and being blinked back, while she plotted how to convey an appropriate level of misery without going into garment-rending hysterics or being accused of acting like a heartless bastard.

Sherlock was watching her carefully while carefully not appearing to watch her. She was going to start crying any minute now and he didn't know exactly how he ought to react. He never cried from genuine emotion...only to manipulate people in certain situations. She, on the other hand, appeared to be overwhelmed and the stress was going to leak out through her tear ducts. He thought he should probably start with appearing sympathetic, but he rather ran out of ideas after that.

"You are lactose-intolerant."

"Huh?" Veranda gaped at Sherlock in disbelief.

"You are lactose-intolerant, arachnophobic and you have a cat. You are ambidextrous, a life-long non-smoker and you do not like the color orange."

She rubbed her eyes tiredly. "Not now Sherlock. And my cat died six months ago, so you're not bowling a 300."

"Your jumper has cat fur on it."

"You've obviously never had a cat. I'm still picking out hairs from cats that died 20 years ago."

"Because you own 20 year-old pieces of clothing."

"You figured that out already. Going back over old ground doesn't get you more points."

"Veranda..."

"Hmm?"

"I don't know how to say this without possibly making a bad situation worse..."

"When did that ever stop you?"

"Yes. Precisely. You are exceedingly easy to distract for a person in your situation. One might think that you are not as emotionally distraught as would be considered...seemly."

Now she was grinding the heels of both hands into her eye sockets. "Oh, God. Sherlock! Just stop already! If I told you I was a fraud, would that make you happy? Would it shut you up? Because I will do whatever it takes if you will just leave me alone. I'm in a bad place right now and I don't need you, or anyone, telling me whether I am sufficiently 'emotionally distraught' or not!"

"That's...that's not what I meant. I just wanted you to know that...it's fine. It's all fine. I will never judge you."

She stared up at him with both palms pressed against the sides of her face and could find nothing to say that seemed remotely appropriate. It was one of the kindest things anyone had ever said to her and she had no eloquent words to express her gratitude.

"Thank you, Sherlock."

"You're welcome, Veranda." He looked somberly out the window and said nothing else until the cab pulled up outside St. Bart's Hospital.

Veranda had to concentrate on putting one foot in front of the other as she and Sherlock walked down to the basement of the hospital. The conversation during the taxi ride had taken more out of her than she thought. Now she felt a bit faint and was concerned she might throw up.

As they entered through the double doors of the morgue, they were greeted by the pathologist who Sherlock introduced as Molly Hooper. She was a youngish woman, perhaps in her early thirties, and struck Veranda as always trying to fold in on herself. She was thin-lipped with her mousy brown hair pulled back in a sloppy ponytail and a white lab coat worn open over a very loudly patterned and unattractive sweater.

She would have still been a couple inches shorter than Veranda, even if she hadn't been slouching. She wanted to tell the poor girl to stand up straight and carry herself better. Her first impression was a bit pathetic and unprofessional. It didn't help at all that she was obviously completely gaga for Sherlock. Veranda couldn't really blame her, but it was still sad to see. Between the two of them they still didn't have half-a-chance with the distinguished Mr. Holmes.

Her warm brown eyes were filled compassion as she shook Veranda's hand and said, "I am so sorry for what happened. I've cleaned everyone up so there shouldn't be any blood at all. Slit throats are very messy." She blinked rapidly a couple times and looked sharply from side to side. "Perhaps I shouldn't have..."

Veranda cut her off. "No. Let's just...get this over with. Shall we?"

"OK!" Molly all but chirped and Sherlock rolled his eyes. She led them over to six body bags lined up on rolling tables along the far wall. She unzipped the first one and Veranda couldn't swallow her stricken gasp.

"That's...that's Morgan. Morgan Carlsson. Oh, Morgan." Morgan was actually several years younger than Veranda, but she was the motherly type and had always treated her like an adopted daughter. The searing agony of seeing her lifeless husk was like losing her own mom all over again. She began trembling and wheezing and the world started to go grey at the edges. She squeezed her eyes shut and began making a 'no, no' gesture as she took a quick step back. Unfortunately, that was where Sherlock had decided to observe from so she collided with him. He caught her by the shoulders before she could crumple to the floor.

"Are you going to be all right?" Sherlock staggered a bit under her weight as he tried to find enough purchase to prevent her sliding out of her leather coat and onto the cold, wet tiles. Neither of them were paying any heed to Molly so they didn't see the angst written on her face as she watched her crush manhandle another woman.

"I'm fine. I'll be fine. Just let me...fine. I'm OK." She regained her footing, took a deep, centering breath and pulled her shoulders up. Then she yanked them forward and out of Sherlock's hands. He retreated without remark and Molly's eyes lit up. She zipped up Morgan's bag and dashed around to the next table.

One by one, Veranda identified Marc, Gerry, Carl, Viktoria and Elliot. By the end she looked as cadaverous as the bodies she was standing over, but she was still on her feet. She felt triumphant for that small victory. She signed whatever papers Molly shoved in front of her without reading anything. Her hand had such a tremor that she doubted it would qualify as her legal signature anyway.

As they turned to leave, Veranda wobbled slightly when the world tilted on its axis and she put her hands out for balance. Sherlock sighed impatiently and put his arm around her waist so he could both hold her up and direct her out of the morgue. He called over his shoulder, "Thank you, Molly."

Veranda mewled piteously and didn't immediately notice Sherlock's attempt at chivalry.

They left Molly standing with her arms limply at her sides, deflated and dejected, staring disconsolately after them as the doors swung shut.

Out in the hallway, Veranda continued to be woozy and unsteady on her feet. Sherlock was afraid to let go of her for fear she would collapse, but he really wished there was a bench somewhere he could sit her down on. After a couple of minutes and much head-shaking and eye-rubbing, she appeared to regain her senses.

"Le' go. I'm fine."

"You neither look nor sound 'fine'."

"Don't matter. Le' go a me."

"Not until I'm certain you won't end up in a heap on the floor."

"People gonna star' staring."

"We're the only ones down here."

"If'n Molly walks out that door, girl's gone kill me. So le' go." Veranda was wriggling somewhat insistently.

Sherlock tightened his grip around her in case she lost her dubious coordination during her pointless carrying-on. "What has Molly to do with any of this?"

"Oh, man...you don' know? Poor girl's got it bad for you. Like, really bad."

"I am not...unaware...of her attraction to me. It has caused some _awkward_ moments in the past. It is in her best interests that I do not encourage her...romantic aspirations. Anyway, I believe you suffer from much the same malady as she."

There was a strangled cough from the woman he held firmly beside him.

"I see everything. I simply chose to not react to most of it. I am not a nice man, Veranda. I would leave you scarred and broken and I would probably kill Molly. It isn't worth it, so put it out of your mind."

Veranda suddenly had a bit of righteous anger to help focus her mind. "Women have their own agency. You give yourself too much credit, kid."

"Please don't patronise me. I have someone to do that already."

"Who?"

"My older brother."

"Oh, God. Is he anything like you?"

"In some ways...he is worse."

"Are your parents still alive?"

"Yes."

"Wow. That is some karmic retribution right there."

"I don't believe in such things."

"I keep an open mind. 'There are more things in heaven and earth, Horatio, than are dreamt of in your philosophy.'"

"Hamlet."

"I'm Danish. I can't help it."

"You're American."

"Danish-American...4th generation. So sue me. Now please. Let go!"

They walked up to the courtyard and sat on a bench to people-watch until Veranda was convinced she wasn't imminently going to become physically ill.

"Why do the cops hate you so badly?" She was watching the pigeons more than the people milling around.

"Come again?"

"That Donovan gal acted like she would rather shoot you in the head and throw your body in the Thames than have to talk to you civilly. Actually, she might enjoy dancing on your grave. Why?" _God, I hate pigeons._

"There is some bad blood between us."

"Why do I doubt she's the only one?" _And people._

"She's not."

"What do you do that you piss off the cops? Are you a criminal lawyer? An exposé writer?" _Arsenic._

He gave her a sidelong glance. "I'm a consulting detective. The world's only."

"I think I understand your magnetic personality, now." _Maybe strychnine._

"What?"

"You have a gravitational field around you. And it's because your massive ego is crammed into such a small space that it's like a white dwarf." _No, definitely arsenic._

Sherlock wrinkled his nose up. "As I was saying, I am a consulting detective and I am, unfortunately for the police force, much better at their jobs than they are."

"Whoa, dude. I think you're in danger of collapsing into a singularity." _For Sherlock._

"You are not funny."

"Neither are you." _Mounds of the stuff._

"Scotland Yard make themselves look stupid and I help them."

"Is that your modifier dangling there deliberately or are you just happy to see me?" _Perhaps a garrote._

"You are not funny."

"Oh, I'm having a blast. I haven't gotten to be this mean to anyone in years. It's refreshing. I forgot how pleasant a bare-knuckled brawl with an asshole can be." _Or a gun._

"I believe I preferred you when you were grieving."

"Oh, this is me in mourning. If I were OK, then you would know." _All three...that's the ticket._

"How?"

"Because I would be outta here faster than you could say 'bumbershoot cummerbund'." _There's no kill like over-kill._

"You cannot leave."

"Oh, Alex. I'll take 'Watch Me' for a thousand." _That Donovan woman would be so jealous._

"You could test the patience of Job." Sherlock was rubbing his hand over his eyes.

"I could make St. Francis of Assisi want to kick babies. In all fairness...you can too." _They might award me a medal._

He started massaging his temples. He was getting a headache. He never got headaches. "We must establish a détente and agree to a peace accord."

"Why? Besides the obvious fact that we bring out the worst in each other when we quit trying to be cordial? I think we've hit our resonant frequency. Think of the destruction we could wreak! Come with me and we'll annihilate everything. We'll blow this joint to Kingdom Come on sheer attitude power." _Dammit._

"So you agree?"

"Abso-frickin'-lutely. Truce." She held out her hand and they shook on their non-aggression pact._ Spoilsport._

"Now, pray tell me. Why can't I leave? I'm packed. All I have to do is go get my stuff and I'll walk out of your life forever. What part of that doesn't sound brilliant?" _Maybe I could smother him in his sleep..._

"Because we are, in the unfortunate style of cheap and tawdry sitcoms the world over...stuck with each other. I gave my word to...the British government...that I would keep you alive and that is my only job presently. I always perform my duties to the best of my abilities, so I will be looking out for you until such time as I am relieved by my _superior_." He was proud there were only two half-truths in his statement.

"Why you? Why stick me with a 'consulting detective'? What does that even _mean_? If it's that important I stay alive, why not get me a proper bodyguard?" _...who isn't a mouthy brat._

"Sometimes a situation calls for using unofficial channels. I am as unofficial as can be had."

"I still don't get it. What does the 'British government' want with me?" _What's his brother like?_

"You will have to trust me."

"I think I liked you better when you were being an asshole." _My life sucks._


	5. A Turn for the Worse

Veranda got out of the cab first and as Sherlock paid the driver she peered up and down Baker Street in idle curiosity. Her interest was caught by the sounds of construction across the street. The lower stories of what appeared to be an apartment building were in the final stages of being repaired and she was about to ask him what had happened to it when he grabbed her shoulders and spun the two of them 180 degrees. She had no sooner opened her mouth to chastise him when a cyclist who was careening down the sidewalk hit him in the back quite hard. He stumbled into her, which nearly knocked her off her feet and by the time they recovered the jerk was too far away to catch. Sherlock looked worried rather than stunned. With wide eyes Veranda was staring at him. "Are you OK? What was that all about?"

He shook his head slightly and with a low voice said, "I don't know. We should get you inside."

He made a slight flourish toward the door of the foyer and put his hand to the small of her back to guide her ahead of him. She didn't see as he struggled to focus on getting the door unlocked, but she felt him jostle her as the door opened and he tripped over his own feet getting in through the doorway. She turned to him in horror as he slammed the door shut and locked it before falling against it with a ragged gasp. He was a ghastly shade of grey and was beginning to breathe very hard. His knees buckled and he started sliding down the door.

She caught him under the arms and was simultaneously amazed at how heavy he was and how glad she was to have spent the last year at the gym. She briefly thought the collision had broken one of Sherlock's ribs and she should call an ambulance, but she didn't know what 911 was in Britain. Then she had the terrifying realization that she was beginning to get dizzy herself and she remembered some tv show about a Soviet dissident who had been stabbed with a poisoned umbrella and died.

She started hyperventilating and called out for Mrs. Hudson, but she either didn't hear or wasn't home. Veranda tried to calm herself and decided to get Sherlock upstairs while he was still semi-conscious. The first thing she did was strip him out of his huge overcoat because it added at least 10 pounds and made him too slippery. She threw it over the newel post, whereupon it promptly drained off onto the floor. She growled and quickly shimmied out of her own car coat which she pitched on top of Sherlock's. Urgently she asked him, "Where's your phone?" He made a vague motion toward his chest before pitching forward and she had to catch him again lest he do a header into the hallway.

What followed would have been an embarrassment to them both if either had been in their right minds. She pushed, pulled and dragged him up the flight of stairs like he was a rag doll…a rag doll that was alternately a boneless deadweight and an argumentative Jell-O Jiggler. At one point she was trying to shove him along the railing with both hands on his ass before giving up and using her shoulder. Her strength had nearly given out when she finally pushed him headlong out onto the 2nd floor landing.

She rolled him over and fished in his pockets until she found his keys and his phone. Picking the most worn-looking key, she tried the lock to the apartment and was rewarded when the door swung open. She finished dragging Sherlock inside and bolted the door again. Getting down on her knees next to him, she tried to ask him to unlock his phone so she could call John or Mrs. Hudson but her tongue was too thick and she just hissed incoherently.

It didn't matter because he was out completely, but at least he was still breathing; her gauzy recollection of a CPR class made her roll him onto his side. Just then, Sherlock's phone rang and she dove to answer it. The caller ID was too blurry to read and she was lucky to hit the green button. All she could spit out was a strangled, "Hunphhfssss. Fffffffnnk…" before she dropped the phone and the world faded to black. She was unconscious by the time she collapsed face-down next to Sherlock.

John growled in annoyance at his phone after Mycroft hung up. He had been insisting that John go check up on Sherlock as apparently _he_ was now his brother's keeper. Mycroft had just called Sherlock and Veranda had answered…if mumbling something incomprehensible before physically dropping the phone could be considered 'answering'. He was still pissed that the terrible twosome had sent him to Dublin without telling him why and, as it turned out, for no good reason when Veranda eventually landed in London. He had argued vehemently that everything was fine and that his worry was unfounded, but Mycroft would not take 'no' for an answer; he was clearly uneasy about Sherlock's safety so John gave in. They had both agreed that the Baker Street flat was the first place to look. Putting his irritation aside, he caught a cab home.

He walked in through the foyer door and stopped with a gasp when he saw Sherlock's greatcoat and a black leather jacket piled on the floor. He charged up the staircase and unlocked the kitchen door because he still didn't have a key to the other door. He rounded the corner and an involuntary, "Oh God, no!" left his lips. He fell to his knees next to Sherlock and Veranda and immediately checked their respiration and pulses. Both seemed to be fine except they were out cold and he couldn't rouse either of them. He sat back on his heels and phoned Mycroft who, upon learning that his brother was inexplicably unconscious in his own sitting room, thanked John for his help and hung up on him. John shook his head and heaved a heavy sigh before standing up. Upon looking around the room, nothing besides the sleeping form of his best friend and their house guest/client was out-of-the-ordinary.

John decided to get Sherlock into bed, but it was a mighty struggle to get him up off the floor when he was completely limp. Finally he got him over his shoulder so he could cart him through the kitchen and down the hall to his bedroom. He unintentionally threw him down on the bed, but Sherlock still didn't stir. He straightened him out so he was lying on his side facing the door and pulled his shoes off. Going back to the sitting room, he considered what to do with Veranda. He probably oughtn't leave her on the floor, but he was concerned she might roll off the sofa again if he moved her there. With a shrug he picked her up and carried her down to Sherlock's bedroom…he might as well have both his patients in the same place. He placed her on the other side of the bed facing the wall and as he took her shoes off, she opened her eyes slightly and tried to speak.

John ran to get her a glass of water and helped her take a couple sips. He asked, "What happened?"

Veranda shook her head and said, "Doan know…by hissherliss." Then she faded back to sleep and he laid her down again.

He resigned himself to wait and made a cup of tea to pass the time. He checked up on them every 15 minutes or so for a bit, but then he got busy writing on his supremely quiet laptop with its new fan and let almost an hour go by. When he went back in, he had to stifle a laugh and ran out to get his phone. Sherlock had rolled over and was spooned up against Veranda's back with one arm over her protectively. John had to have a picture to torture him with later, even if it was obtained under unfair circumstances. He had no idea what had knocked them out, but they were sleeping peacefully now so he left them to wake up on their own.

It was getting on to supper time and John heard Mrs. Hudson come home downstairs before he finally detected a slight stirring from the bedroom down the hall. The rustling quickly escalated to a woman's shriek, punctuated by a meaty crash and a hoarse groan. John ran through the kitchen and nearly stepped on his friend's hand when he entered the room. Sherlock was thrashing weakly on the floor, too uncoordinated to even get to his hands and knees, let alone stand. Veranda was huddled in a ball by the headboard, whimpering softly as she rocked back and forth.

John gathered Sherlock up and hoisted him back onto the bed. Veranda didn't budge but she stopped making strange noises and sat still. John asked her, "Would you like some tea?"

She nodded assent and climbed off the bed to woozily follow him out of the room. She pulled up short in front of the framed periodic table on the wall and began singing quietly while bobbing her head, "There's yttrium, ytterbium, actinium, rubidium, and boron, gadolinium, niobium, iridium, and strontium and silicon and silver and samarium, and bismuth, bromine, lithium, beryllium, and barium.1"

Behind her there was protracted moan before Sherlock rasped, "Where on _earth_…did you learn that?"

She turned and cast him a dirty look but was interrupted by John singing "I am the very model of a modern Major-General, I've information vegetable, animal, and mineral, I know the kings of England, and I quote the fights historical from Marathon to Waterloo, in order categorical…2"

Sherlock punctuated the impromptu concert by flopping onto his back and sighing loudly. "At least her version could be important to someone, someday."

John laughed. "You never know when you might run into a Pirate of Penzance! Everyone who's up for it…the kettle is on the boil."

/-/-/-/-/-/-/-/-/-/-/-/-/-/-/-/-/-/

1 "The Elements" lyrics written and performed by Tom Lehrer, 1959

2 "Major-General's Song" Gilbert and Sullivan, 1879


	6. Hypocritical Oaths

It was almost 8 pm when John was finally satisfied that Sherlock and Veranda were sufficiently recovered that he felt comfortable leaving them. He had a date for 9 pm so he might have been a bit biased about their respective conditions. After 3 failed guesses at the lady's name, John snapped at Sherlock to shut up and he left in a bit of pique.

Veranda had inquired about the nearest bar but Sherlock put the kibosh on her plan. Instead he handed her a random bottle of alcohol from the cupboard and she seemed pleased enough. She poured herself a drink and he politely declined the offer to join her. She dragged John's chair around to face the fireplace and sat down to begin drinking in earnest.

Sherlock watched Veranda with unease as she downed her second Scotch. He was quite certain she was swiftly becoming inebriated and he was just as certain that it wasn't a good idea after all she had been through today. She was drinking with the air of a woman determined to get blackout drunk and he felt slightly sad for her.

Veranda, for her part, was laboring to ignore Sherlock's presence. The man could be such a pain in the ass. A vision in marble come to life and with as much humanity as one could expect from something so unnatural. She shook her head and groaned inwardly. He was full of hooey…she knew it…more importantly she knew _he_ knew it. And now was a fine time to call him on his shenanigans.

She put her empty glass down on the end table beside her chair and struggled to stand up. The chair was far too low to the ground and she had to grab the mantelpiece when she finally made it to her feet. She stood there for a moment with her head down, relishing the warm wooziness and the pleasant weakness in her legs. She looked up into the mirror over the fireplace, first at herself and then behind her where Sherlock was sitting on the sofa, eyeing her with calm concern.

She exhaled in a resigned sigh and picked up the skull off the mantel. She turned it over and over in her hands and looked at it as carefully as she could even though she didn't have her glasses and she was starting to see a faint double-outline around things. She ran her fingers around the ocular orbits and over the teeth before exclaiming, "It's real! I like it! I especially love how you've nailed his jaw on."

"Him?" Sherlock sounded testy.

"What? Oh, yeah." She held it in profile and squinted at it and then stuck her thumb in between the sinuses. "Definitely him. Caucasian, too. Did you know poor Yorick?"

"No. It...was a...gift." He really wanted to tell her to put his skull down. It was bad enough when Mrs. Hudson took it away from him as punishment for some perceived infraction of a societal code...or the house rules.

"Oh. That's cool. All mine are fakes. It's not legal to have real ones. They're all named Bob. Even my skeleton is named Bob. I sometimes call him Dead Earnest if he's being a jerk, but mostly I call him Bob."

"You have problems with your skeleton...whom you've named?"

"Yeah. He falls over sometimes or he's sitting where I need to put something. I leave him on the couch, mostly. He keeps the Mormons and Jehovah's Witnesses away."

"I see. So you don't talk to your 'Bobs'?"

"Oh, no. I yap at them all the time. I talk to my Grim Reapers, too...they're all named George. It's just nobody talks back. I live alone and now my cat's gone so I get tired of talking to myself. As long as they don't start to argue, I'm not going to worry about it."

Sherlock nodded slowly and decided he was not going to admit that he talked to his skull as well. He didn't want this very odd woman to think they had too much in common.

She put the skull back, to Sherlock's relief, and took a deep breath. She closed her eyes again and recited, "Wish I was a better person, with more control. Turn the other cheek, when the punch comes…roll. Wish I was a kinder person…could see the other's pain…not over-react, never judge, shrug off the spreading stain." She turned and continued, "I'm damaged. And I like it. It made me what I am.1" She stared him down, somewhat unfocussed, before marching in a fairly straight line across the room to stand before him. She crossed her arms. He looked bored.

Veranda began her diatribe. "I had to give up my long black coat. People complained they kept hearing Darth Vader's theme music every time I swanned by."

Sherlock cocked an eyebrow. "And you cared?"

She continued, "At some point, I had to. You can only take your half out of the middle for so long before you'll find your path blocked by the swath of destruction you've already wrought." She shook her index finger at him and said, "I know what you're about, Sherlock." He rolled his eyes.

"You go ahead and scoff but your Machiavellian belief that it is better to be feared than loved is an old, old defense. There is nothing new in this world kiddo and I can see right through your shtick. You drive away as many people as possible so there are fewer chances you'll get hurt." He snorted.

She waved theatrically. "A high-functioning sociopath! That's not even a thing, silly! But it sure sounds impressive! I told everyone I was a vampire for 15 years! I was vicious, tactless, rude and completely horrible to almost everyone I met in a vain attempt to protect myself!" Sherlock was looking out the window, even though it was dark, and refused to meet her gaze.

Veranda stepped up to Sherlock so she was toe to toe with him as he sat, impassive. "I've known a couple truly 'sociopathic' personalities and their chances of having reasonably normal, let alone reasonably successful lives were slim to none. Both ended up in jail for trying to shoot people…one had better aim. The other one, who couldn't hit the broad side of a barn, ended up homeless on the street after he got out of jail."

Veranda's voice had climbed slightly and she was talking fast. "You are not a monster and you are not sick! You're an obnoxious jackass because it's expedient. You can turn it off and on like a switch, just like I can. Are we broken? Are we damaged? Maybe! We sure as hell are a little weird! It still doesn't make us wrong…only different. And different is OK."

She started 'singing'. "What I used to be, I'm not anymore. You know I've heard about people like me,  
but I never made the connection. They walk one road to set them free and find they've gone the wrong direction. But there's no need for turning back 'cause all roads lead to where I stand. And I believe I'll walk them all no matter what I may have planned.2"

Sherlock had crossed his arms and was glaring at her fairly gently. Veranda stood silent for a minute, tops, before starting in again. "You know you aren't perfect…you're not even better. You might be special, you might be important, but you aren't a superman. You're not the übermensch. This world is run by 'normal' people and we're stuck here with them. To a certain extent we have to play by their rules. We need 'normal' people to balance us out." He gave her a raised eyebrow each time she said the word 'normal' with exaggerated air quotes and a certain derisive intonation.

She was blithely and drunkenly unaware of his having caught her casual disparagement of the mass of humanity. "Imagine a world full of nothing but people like us. It'd be empty. We would have driven ourselves to extinction on principle!" She looked at him expectantly as if she was carrying on a conversation and was waiting for his participation.

Instead Sherlock asked her, "What is it with you and the song lyrics? Have you ever considered what you could do with your mind if it weren't filled with such ephemera?"

Veranda frowned slowly and looked like she was choosing her words carefully. "I'd be a lot more like you. Barely functional." He rolled his eyes and favored her with a loud, exasperated snort that nearly devolved into a raspberry.

She ignored his outburst as she looked pensive and stared blankly over his head. Her voice was small as she said, "I grew up in a house with an alcoholic. I was six months old when my half-brother left home at 16. We never heard from him again. My family was very insular so the first time I truly interacted with other children was the one day I spent in Kindergarten. I got the living daylights beaten out of me and my mother's solution was to have me put straight into 1st grade. I never stood a chance, really. I have no idea why people wax poetic over childhood because it was a living nightmare that I've struggled to overcome."

She looked down to him with a grim smile. "But you know all about that, don't you? I defaulted to anger because anger is easy…easy to understand and easy to express. I lashed out at everyone around me, especially when I found that people responded positively to it. I enjoyed it when my bullies turned tail and ran and no one ever approached me if it was not an absolute necessity."

Her smile became fond. "I grew to think that I actually was evil and I reveled in my self-appointed title. I was 28 before I finally ran into someone who would call me on my bullshit. And you know why? Because he had done the same goddamned thing! The equation has different variables every time, Sherlock, but the result is remarkably consistent."

She shook her head at him reproachfully. "You act out and then pretend that you don't understand, but you know damn well what you're up to. And you need to stop. You'll drive away the people who actually do care about you in spite of your foibles and you'll be left with nothing. Right now you think that everyone in your orbit is a petty annoyance…but you don't know what absolutely alone really feels like."

Sherlock had been sitting silent, wondering how this woman could cut him to the quick and then act like she was doing him a favor. Veranda leveled a look of anguish at him and her eyes were turning red with tears welling up. "Everyone I was close to is gone, Sherlock. My life has been ripped apart and I have to start all over. Promise me you'll try to be a better person, with more control? Don't run roughshod over everyone in your path. OK?" He looked at her with uncertainty.

She heaved a sigh and squeezed her eyes shut in a vain attempt to staunch the tears. She looked back to him as they began to run down her cheeks. Finally, in a voice cracked with pain, she said "The only person I ever managed to hurt was myself."

She took a deep breath and gathered herself back together. "The song lyrics remind me of where I've been and where I want to go and the choices I have to make to get there. I told you there is nothing new in this world…to me that means that most permutations of most mistakes have been made already and I prefer to learn from other people's mistakes. Fortunately, the majority of really big errors have been documented in popular song."

She smiled wanly at him and shrugged weakly. "Besides, there's plenty of room to store all sorts of garbage in the back of my brain. I gave up trying to have a battle of the wits with unarmed people years ago so there's not much more for me to do besides spout lyrics apropos of apparently nothing at folks. I originally tried quoting great philosophers, but I spent more time trying to explain who they were and how I learned about them than I ever did discussing the actual philosophy involved." Veranda gave Sherlock a wry grimace and shook her head. "You'd be surprised at how many people cannot accept 'books' as a viable excuse for knowing anything…actually you're probably not surprised. Are you?"

His mouth had wrenched into a malevolent smile and she took an involuntary step backward. "You look like the Grinch when you do that."

Sherlock's grin morphed from insane to merely acidic as he said, "So you're a genius, too."

Veranda shrugged noncommittally and her voice was blasé. "Yeah. Look how far it's gotten me! A fat lot of good it's done." He chuckled in a singularly mocking manner and she drew her shoulders back, affronted. "Like it's done you much better?" He still looked like he was daring her to keep talking.

She might have not given him the satisfaction if she was sober, but she wasn't and her brakes weren't working very well. "A high IQ is like a big ol' V8 engine. Massive displacement, all the horsepower and torque in the world...but it doesn't do you any good without a car to put it in."

"Now, you've decided you're a snazzy sports car." She made a facetious 'oh, wow' gesture that was broad enough she would have hit anyone standing within 3 feet of her. "You're all fat tires and racing stripes and you peel out at every green light. You take off in a great big cloud of smoke and leave tire tracks everywhere you go. That catches people's attention for sure and they will talk about you. After a couple go-rounds, though, they mostly wish you'd just go away 'cuz you don't learn that there's a time and a place for everything."

"I used to be like that, too. Actually, I was more of a rat-rod. I was bizarre and grotesque because I was bored and I loved watching people try to scrape their jaws up off the floor. I think that's why I settled on being a vampire...that and the fact I turn pink when I even _consider_ going without my sunscreen. Anyway, I burnt a lot of rubber as an angry young woman, but I eventually figured out that I was full of sound and fury and not amounting to a whole helluva lot. So I settled into life as a station wagon...you call them estate cars...and it's been a good choice. I'm practical, useful, dependable and you can fill me full of cheese." She guffawed at what was apparently another joke, but Sherlock couldn't parse it.

"That engine is still under the hood...bonnet...whatever...I can still floor it when I need to. But this world isn't full of autobahns...we're stuck in a traffic jam most of the time. I'm happy like this because I've found a way to be calm and content even when I'm not moving an inch. You're still acting like caffeinated gerbil and you spend half your time pounding on the steering wheel even though you're not going anywhere very fast either."

"I hate to see what you're going through because it's...they're demons, Sherlock. All of our tics and affectations and idiosyncrasies? Demons. Named and numbered and hung on a frame that only looks human. But we're not inherently bad people. We just have to work a bit harder to get all of the little rascals to cooperate and move in the same direction. But you're still letting them get the best of you. It's so easy to be antagonistic and abrasive and you think you like doing it because you just don't know any different. You have to stop being so awestruck at your own ability to Hulk-out. Not all attention is good attention."

"The urge never completely goes away. Witness the cantankerous old bat that was flapping around this morning...but you can find a better way that works for everyone. There's a fine line between being who you think you are and refusing to sand the rough edges off so you can peacefully coexist with the people around you. You don't have to sell yourself out and twist yourself into knots so you can fit into someone else's mold, but you can blaze your own trail without waging a total war. The twisted, burning wreckage you leave in your wake is not a badge of honor and it's not something to be proud of. It's the hallmark of someone who hasn't learned self-control and the difference between their id and their ego.

"You would make a very unique psychologist." He wore the tiniest little smirk.

"I'm drunk, Sherlock. My advice is worth exactly what you paid for it. Now if you don't mind...I'm gonna take a shower and go to bed. I suggest you move if you don't want me to sleep in your lap."

Sherlock had retired to his bedroom and shut the door by the time Veranda finished emptying out the hot water heater.

/-/-/-/-/-/-/-/-/-/-/-/-/-/-/-/

1 "Damaged" lyrics by John Shirley &amp; Donald Roeser, performed by Blue Öyster Cult, 1998.

2 "Crossroads" written and performed by Don McLean, 1971


	7. An Overture of Conciliation

Something was burning again. Veranda woke up with a start and immediately groaned out loud. Her head thumped with every beat of her heart and her stomach lurched as she lay back down. Instinctively she knew that this dismal start was only the beginning of the hell she was going to pay for last night.

It was still early morning, judging by the grey light filtering through the curtained windows. John had snuck in a couple hours before dawn just as she was waking from a thoroughly x-rated dream that unfortunately featured Sherlock. She'd fallen back to sleep, but her new dream was disjointed and not particularly pleasant. Fully awake now, she hoped that was the worst that would be said about the coming waking nightmare that was the new day.

She threw back the blanket and sat up as gingerly as possible before swinging her feet over the side of the couch. Once she was upright, she cradled her head in her hands in an attempt to keep her skull from exploding. She wasn't a Scotch drinker and she certainly wasn't used to basically slugging it straight out of the bottle. She was a rum and Coke girl with Black or White Russians for a change of pace.

These days, she hardly drank at all and the hangover was a sickening reminder of why she had nearly quit. The older she got, the harder it was to get up in the morning and function normally after a night out. The thought of last night made her clutch her temples even harder and she stifled another agonized groan. Last night was an unmitigated disaster and she rued having to face Sherlock after calling him a number of colorful and unflattering names.

What she'd done was horribly uncalled-for. She wasn't sure what was worse...calling Sherlock on his bluff or over-sharing about her past. She had a tendency to become a wildly inappropriate philosopher when she drank and she'd promised herself years ago to only get drunk around people who knew better than to pay her any attention when she went off the rails. Hopefully he had gracefully chosen to ignore her pointless rambling.

She got up to investigate the acrid fumes emanating from the kitchen and padded across the hardwood floor. She squeezed through the mostly closed pocket doors that separated the living room from the kitchen/dining area and came face-to-face with Sherlock, also still clad in his pajamas. His hair was in charming disarray and he obviously hadn't showered or shaved yet. He looked like a real human being, for once.

"Morgen, Sherlock."

"Bom Dia, Veranda."

"Yeah. You'll notice my guten was missing. I like mornings better when they start later. What are you trying to incinerate today?"

"I am apparently studying how to reduce previously-edible foodstuffs to their constituent elements."

"One hundred and one ways to burn toast?"

"I have another type of ash to add to my monograph."

"Ay, yup." She cautiously picked through the piles of charred bread littered on plates that were teetering on the counter and the kitchen table. Picking a piece that didn't look too bad, she sniffed at it and then took a bite.

"There may be butter in the refrigerator." Sherlock was watching her with a mixture of curiosity and apprehension.

She chewed and swallowed. It wasn't much worse than what she usually ate. She wasn't a picky eater even on a bad day. "Nope. Dry toast is just what the doctor ordered. Actually...charcoal is good for an upset stomach." She smiled a bit and continued to look for another edible slice as she finished the first one. She found a suitable candidate and waved it around for emphasis when she asked, "What all have you been trying?"

"The Bunsen burner was too localised." He held up a piece of bread with a hole burned through the middle. "The torch imparted substantially too many BTU's. That one ignited and I threw it in the sink. Mostly I have been experimenting with the..._oven_."

"Ooh...domestic. Bake or broil?"

"Both. Neither have been particularly effective."

"Oh, I'd say they've been a bit too effective." She looked around the kitchen again. "How many loaves of bread have you gone through?"

"Three."

"I'll give you points for determination, Sherlock, but wouldn't it be easier to just use a toaster?"

"A what?"

"Believe it or not, they have invented a kitchen appliance specifically to facilitate the burning of bread on one side while leaving the other side untouched."

"I've mastered that with the oven."

"Toasters are smaller."

"Size is irrelevant to accomplishing the task at hand."

"I bet you say that to all the ladies."

"I beg your pardon?"

"Nevermind. Is there anything to drink? I feel like I've got a hamster stuck in my throat." She was still waving her second piece of toast around as she spoke.

"I made some tea earlier, but it's gone cold."

"No! That's great. Where's the glasses?"

He pointed reluctantly at a cupboard and then stared at her with obvious disgust as she drained half a glass of cold tea. Plain, cold, English Breakfast tea. She wasn't an entirely mannerless wretch, but he could never take her anywhere until she learned some proper British decorum. He looked suspiciously over his shoulder, uncertain of where that thought had manifested from.

She polished off her toast and the glass of tea before she cleared her throat, "Speaking of things gone horribly wrong...I would like to apologize for last night. I have no right to tear into you like I did...I mean, I hardly know you. I feel like a hypocrite...just because I think I struggle to be a reasonable facsimile of a human being doesn't mean that you do or even that we have the same issues. I can't go telling you to change just because I think you're headed down a bad path. You said you wouldn't judge me...and I'm afraid I have done nothing but, in return. I am very, very sorry. I hope you can forgive me." She was holding her hands in a classic posture of supplication.

He regarded her calmly for a minute or so while his mind whirred. He hadn't been expecting an apology because he didn't think she'd said anything to be sorry for. She had rendered her honest, if drunken, opinion and that was nothing to be ashamed of. Perhaps...just perhaps...her belief that she had crossed a line indicated that she had a better grasp than he on what boundaries actually meant to most people. It was something to consider later. Much later. When he finally spoke, he said, "Nothing was said that cannot be forgotten and nothing done that cannot be forgiven. I must say, toward the end it was one of the most extensive and elaborate mixed metaphors I have ever witnessed."

"I was drunk and babbling nonsense."

"You had a blood alcohol content of between .08 and .10 percent. You were under the influence, and although I would not have wanted you operating machinery of any sort, you were perfectly aware of what you were saying. You made your point clearly, if not concisely." There was a certain tightness about his jaw and in his voice which was at variance with his calm words.

"And now you want me to drop it."

"Please."

"OK. What's on today's agenda?"

"Nothing which should concern you."

Veranda's shoulders slumped. "You have a way of making everything you say sound like an insult."

"It was a statement of fact and nothing else."

"I know. I'm still tired and it makes me sensitive to people who wield words like cricket bats. I'm going to go lay back down."

Sherlock watched her retreat into the sitting room. Cricket? What would she know about cricket? Cricket bats _hurt_. An uncomfortable feeling crept up his spine as he fought to ignore the idea that she might know exactly what she was inferring. He hadn't intended to snub her. Worryingly, he was beginning to respect her for the way she kept standing up to him and his arsehole behaviour. She was simply being too delicate about it and should probably be the one using the bat. He shook his head and looked around the wrecked kitchen. It was time to get cleaned up, dressed and on to something practical.

He showered, shaved and was in his bedroom putting on his shoes when he heard John exclaim in the kitchen, "Christ! What happened in here?"

He walked out with his jacket draped over his arm. "Get dressed, John. We need to work on our case."

John was standing in the middle of the kitchen and looking exceptionally haggard. He was holding an immolated piece of bread in front of his bleary, yet astonished eyes. "Did she do this?" He tilted his head back toward the sitting room and, presumably, Veranda.

"No."

"You did this?"

"Your powers of deduction never fail to astound me, John."

"Smartarse. What were you doing? Trying to do? Were you trying...to make toast? You don't cook, Sherlock."

"I would not debase the culinary arts by attempting to claim that this," he swept his arm around the kitchen, "qualifies as 'cooking'. I was conducting research."

"Into what?"

"I...I don't know. Now get dressed."

John smiled in a fashion which made Sherlock very uneasy as he brandished the burnt bread. "You did this for _her_. You were trying to be nice to _her_. What happened last night? What did I miss?"

"She got drunk."

"And..."

"And she shouted at me. At length."

"So you made her breakfast?"

"The two events are not connected. Get dressed, John." Sherlock left him standing, bewildered and surrounded by cold, burned toast. To John, it was a peculiar crime scene filled with evidence that Sherlock was not quite the man of pure logic that he pretended to be.


	8. Time To Kill

Sherlock and John left. They didn't even bother to tell her where they were going and when they might be back. Sherlock had intimated that she was to stay in the apartment and out of trouble. Veranda was confident it would be no problem because she still felt pretty poor even after the dry toast, a couple ibuprofen, about a gallon of water and an exceedingly long, hot shower.

As she wandered around the kitchen throwing Sherlock's experimental hockey pucks into a trash bag, she couldn't shake the thought that something was very…off. Nothing normal had been happening as of late, but it seemed extraordinarily strange to her that neither John nor Sherlock had acknowledged they were leaving a virtual stranger alone in their home. Yeah, Sherlock had been 'assigned' to 'look after her', but still…after last night…perhaps he thought she was just a tactless eccentric. Maybe the British were better judges of character than Americans. Then again, she had followed them both home after a sorry excuse for a second thought. It was a minor weird thing in a sea of very weird things.

It wasn't as if they had anything worth swiping; the place looked like a dump. It was filled with tired and worn furniture befitting someone just out of college or who had just suffered a divorce. Maybe it was mostly John's crap? Sherlock obviously either had money or had come from money. His bedroom furniture was the nicest stuff in the whole place and his clothes were worth more than the rest of everything combined. Nothing had yet explained the $50 shampoo.

She tried to watch tv for a bit, but couldn't find anything to hold her attention. She wanted to do some surfing, but both John's and Sherlock's computers were nowhere to be found…not that she had their passwords. Sherlock had even confiscated her e-reader, lest she use the incredibly ungainly web browser on it. She had no choice but to entertain herself the old-fashioned way. First, though, she wanted some coffee. The cold tea with breakfast had been fine, but she wanted the psychosomatic kick of real coffee.

She took a deep breath and began delicately peering into the kitchen cupboards looking for anything vaguely recognizable. She was willing to settle for instant coffee, but she was fairly certain it wouldn't be kept in a tin labeled "Borate" or "Sodium Hydroxide". Why the hell was it next to a jar of artichoke hearts and a bag of gummi bears? Why wasn't the drain cleaner under the sink where it belonged? Why wasn't it labeled drain cleaner? Did they make their own soap? The next cupboard had a preserved pig fetus in a pickle jar. It might have held other things, but she was distracted because the door knob was loose.

Veranda dug around in her suitcase to find her trusty tool kit. She never went anywhere without it, even though airport security usually dragged her aside because of it. How she was supposed to take apart a plane with a multi-bit screwdriver and a pair of pliers was a mystery for the ages. Coffee forgotten, she had happily tightened every knob in the kitchen, fixed the towel bar in the bathroom and was in the midst of repairing a loose hinge on a cabinet when Sherlock and John returned.

She didn't hear them at first because she was singing, somewhat loudly, one of her favorite Rush songs. They walked in and stood for a moment, unnoticed, as she warbled "I don't believe in destiny or the guiding hand of fate. I don't believe in forever or love as a mystical state. I don't believe in the stars or the planets or angels watching from above. But I believe there's a ghost of a chance. We can find someone to love and make it last.1"

Sherlock cleared his throat and she looked over her shoulder with a guilty grin from where she sat on the kitchen floor. "Hi. Back so soon?" John looked on, mildly shocked.

Sherlock said petulantly, "What, precisely, do you think you're doing?"

She turned back to the cabinet and gave the screwdriver a couple more turns before replying, "I think you two need a man around the house to keep it from falling apart." She struggled to her feet and faced them. "Fortunately, I am the man for the job! Honestly? I was looking for coffee and found many things not-coffee, including a bunch of loose screws…no marbles, though." John snickered while Sherlock looked unimpressed with her lame wit.

Somewhat sourly he said, "You could have asked Mrs. Hudson for some instead of rampaging through our kitchen."

It was Veranda's turn to be irritated. "Why would I pester your land lady for coffee? And I wasn't rampaging! It isn't my fault you keep damn strange stuff in your kitchen and that you don't own a screwdriver. I was just trying to be helpful instead of sitting around like a lump on a log."

Sherlock was appraising her with narrowed eyes while John threw his hands up. "Mrs. Hudson is half land lady and half den mother in this asylum." He went to the cupboard by the sink, pulled out a jar of coffee crystals and handed it to Veranda with a smile.

"Thank you very much," she said as she grabbed the electric kettle. John was making fussy little hand gestures, but she shook her head. "No, thank you. I have…well, I had…one just like this at home. I am A-OK, now. Thanks."

With a sharp snap of his coat, Sherlock spun and marched back out the door. He called over his shoulder, "Come on, John!" John shrugged at Veranda and skittered out after Sherlock. She stood there with the empty kettle and let her jaw drop. They were too strange for words. She gave up trying to process what the hell they were up to and set about fixing her precious cup of coffee.

She sat down with a grateful sigh in the chair which had taken up permanent residence right next to the fireplace since she had arrived and took a deep whiff of the steam off her cup. Life was good. Her life was going to be a lot shorter than she had imagined, but at least she had coffee for the trip. One of her mottoes had always been 'Death before dishonor. Nothing before coffee.' She sighed again, sadly this time. Her other favorite motto had been 'Aut inveniam viam aut faciam' which was Latin for 'I will either find a way or make one'. She had no idea how she was going to find or make a way out of the mess she was in now. The biggest problem was she wasn't sure how she'd gotten into it in the first place.

She'd always tried to live her life with as little drama as possible. She'd failed on a number of occasions, but overall she liked peace, quiet and as much orderliness as humanly possible. It was the number two reason she'd chosen to never have children. Number one was that she simply hated them. Her biological clock had never gone off and she joked she'd thrown it against the wall and broken it. It was one more item on a laundry list of things that a lot of folks felt they had a right to render an opinion on whether she was right or wrong. She'd shut one vociferous woman up when she offered to get pregnant by her husband and give her the baby. Served that lady and her big mouth right...although her husband had been a damn fine-looking guy.

She shook her head and stared into the fire. As of Thursday, the drama had gone into overdrive. To quote Bob Dylan, "Now everything's a little upside down. As a matter of fact, the wheels have stopped. What's good is bad, what's bad is good. You'll find out when you reach the top, you're on the bottom.2"

She'd had it better than many and worse than others. Sometimes she wondered if she was strong for overcoming what she had or if she was just too stubborn to admit defeat. She'd done OK after her father died even though it hit her harder than she'd thought it would. At least they'd buried the hatchet before he passed away. She was almost inconsolable after her mother died, but no one questioned her grief. After the love of her life passed, she had really struggled to keep going. There didn't seem to be any point to it anymore. It was then that several people had pointed out that if she had children, she would have something to live for. She reminded them that she had a .45 caliber pistol and she would shoot them with it if they said anything like that to her again. What would the death penalty mean to her? She'd felt a tiny bit of guilt for saying something like that, but people could be so callous in their stupidity.

Instead of giving in to the temptation to kill herself, she was patient and rebuilt yet another life. She didn't necessarily believe in heaven or hell and she wasn't afraid of death, but she had a niggling notion that she might have something left to add to the world. Somehow she found an untapped well of optimism which, when coupled with what she always felt was her frankly _bizarre_ love of helping people, had eventually created a new and comfortable place in the world for herself. The Phoenix always arose, reborn, from its ashes.

Now it was all gone, again. She felt like a jigsaw piece belonging to a different puzzle and she was tired. So, so tired. There was literally nothing left. No family, no friends, no home, no job…no nothing. She was stuck in a stranger's home…and boy howdy, they were strange…waiting. Waiting to be killed? At this point it seemed like bad manners to argue with whoever it was who wanted her dead. Still, a little spark of defiance was glowing in the darkness of her soul. She had to keep fighting. She didn't know any other way. Until Sherlock, et al threw her into the street to fend for herself she would go along with whatever they had in mind. They seemed a good deal more organized than she was at the moment. She still wondered who exactly 'they' all were.

Her thoughts lingered over Sherlock a little longer than necessary until a peculiar ache settled in her chest. She'd always wondered what it really was…it was just under her heart and back toward her spine. Maybe it was her diaphragm? Maybe her spleen? She wasn't an anatomist. It'd be funny as hell if 'heartache' really was 'spleenache'. She made a face. It didn't matter anymore. If she'd ever had a chance with him, she'd blown it to smithereens last night. No man in his right mind would want to be lectured like that, regardless of whether he accepted her apology or not. She mentally kicked herself for being stupid, but it was water under the bridge.

Veranda finished her coffee and decided to read for a bit. She sat back down with a book she had pulled off the oddly-stocked library shelves; she remembered it fondly from when she had read it before in the prehistoric years of her childhood. She had barely cracked it open when two sets of footfalls ascended the stairs and the sitting room door flew open. She casually looked up as a tall figure with arrogant bearing strode into the room. Then she screamed.

She bolted out of her chair and dove for the kitchen, hoping to do an end-run around the man from the airport before he could slice open her throat like he had everyone else's. In two seconds he was on top of her anyway and clapped his hand over her mouth before she could scream again. From the landing Mrs. Hudson admonished, "Mycroft Holmes! Really! Upsetting the lady so, after all she's been through!" He let go of her and stepped back slightly.

Veranda's eyes widened and then narrowed accusingly. "Holmes? _Mycroft_ Holmes? You're Sherlock's…brother?"

The man wrinkled his nose before replying, "Technically...yes." He moved to loom over her again and she backed into a cupboard as she tried to gain more distance from him.

She stuttered, "So you're n-n-not here to k-k-kill me?"

He cocked his head very slightly and said, "Technically...no."

She was terrified and baffled at how someone who dressed like a dandy and sounded so refined could convey such inexorable menace with only two words. He was staring right into her soul just like Sherlock did, but she doubted Mycroft would be as benign about using what he found against her. He raised his hand and drew one surprisingly warm finger across her throat before resting it on her carotid artery. She closed her eyes with a pained expression and fought the urge to resume screaming. She never heard the second pair of footsteps marching up the staircase before Sherlock and John burst through the doorway to the flat.

Sherlock swept into the kitchen and rather abruptly elbowed his brother away from Veranda. "Funny Mycroft," he said archly, "I never thought you would be one to move in on your baby brother's client base."

She was still defensively clutching a hard-bound book to her chest, one he recognized as his quite valuable copy of Sir Arthur Conan Dole's "The Adventures of Sherwood Hauser". He put his hands on her shoulders and bent down to give her a peck on the cheek. When she shivered convulsively, he pulled back and looked at her inquisitively. She grabbed his jacket lapel with one hand and wrenched him back down to her so she could whisper harshly, "What in the holy hell is going on?" The look she gave him would have made another man fear for his life.

His expression caused her to blink repeatedly in confusion. It was a little bit pity, a little bit indulgent and a whole lot of something soft and gentle with a hint of smile. She didn't know what it could possibly mean and had no idea how to react so she just stared at him, shell-shocked.

He mouthed 'patience' before straightening and saying, "Darling, perhaps you should go have a lie-down. You've been under a lot of stress lately." He took the book from her and set it down on the table before turning back and taking the glasses off her head which he folded and placed on the book. He then gently grabbed her elbow and guided her through the kitchen to his bedroom before unceremoniously forcing her to sit on the bed. He turned to take off his coat and hung it up behind the door as he said loudly, "John, would you be so kind as to get Veranda a little something for her nerves. She's had a terrible fright." Then he walked out without giving her another glance.

She stood up and shuffled over to the window where the rain was streaming down the glass. Whatever control she still had over her life was slipping from her tenuous grasp and she felt her thin veneer of normalcy cracking and falling to pieces around her. Maybe she _was_ dead and this was purgatory. It seemed to be populated by monsters masquerading as men and she couldn't begin to ascertain what they had in store for her.

By the time John came back with a small white pill and a tumbler of water, Veranda was sobbing into her arms folded on the windowsill. He cleared his throat and said, "It's only a muscle relaxant. You don't have to take it if you don't want to."

She straightened and turned to look at him blearily. "That's fine. It'd be better if you could give me something so I never woke up again."

He shook his head and grimaced. "Please don't be like that." Indicating the sitting room with a tilt of his head he asked, "Should I get Sherlock?"

"What the devil for?" She replied sourly.

He shrugged before saying, "I don't know. You and he seem to have a bit of a thing going on. He might be able to comfort you."

That elicited a short, sharp bark of laughter from Veranda that ended in a fit of coughing. When she recovered, her voice was bitter. "The only person Sherlock is concerned for is Sherlock. Whatever happened out there? I was just a pawn in some game he is playing against his brother."

John proffered the pill and the water and as she swallowed he explained, "Sherlock and Mycroft despise each other on a number of levels. However, both of them...Sherlock especially...have learned lately that other people have feelings and that although they don't understand them, they have to be a little bit careful about accidentally hurting those around them. I don't believe Sherlock would be so casual about toying with obvious tokens of affection toward you just to needle his brother."

Veranda rubbed her temples. "He doesn't refer to himself as a sociopath for nothing. He isn't, but that's beside the point. He's perfectly capable of callous and thoughtless behavior which borders on heartless. He's dangerous in his own way." She looked John straight in the eye and smiled coldly. "Trusssst me. It takes one to know one." The smile fell off her face as quickly as it appeared and she sat heavily on the edge of the bed. "Thank you, John. I hope I feel better after a nap."

With that, he left and quietly closed the door behind him. She stretched out on the bed and saw Sherlock's coat where he had hung it up. She got up and took it down. Although slightly damp, it was still warm and it smelled like him. She gathered it in her arms and lay back down again, still hugging it as the drug kicked in and she drifted into a fitful slumber.

Out in the sitting room, Sherlock and Mycroft were tensely ignoring each other while John recited the Serenity Prayer to himself repeatedly and tried to be oblivious to them both. After an interminable 15 minutes he broke the silence. "Would anybody like any…" The brothers cut him off with a resounding, "No!"

John threw his hands up and said, "Christ! You two…" He was jabbing his finger them alternately. "Start talking…now! I can't break up a fight that you aren't even having!" He stalked into the kitchen and began making himself some tea to take his mind off how much he would love to bash both the Holmes' skulls in sometimes.

Mycroft primly folded his hands in his lap and addressed the sullen Sherlock, "Why did you leave her alone earlier today? I expressly told you to never let her out of your sight." Sherlock half-turned to him with a look that screamed 'Oh, _really_' without uttering a single word. Mycroft took offense, nevertheless. "She is obviously still being targeted and we can't have her unsupervised! She might have tried to sneak off!"

Sherlock rolled his eyes in the extremely exaggerated fashion that he knew drove Mycroft insane. "She's not going to go anywhere! She's too smart for that. She knows that we are on her side, more-or-less, in that we are not the ones trying to kill her." He smiled deviously. "At least she knows _I'm_ not trying to kill her. She thought you were one of the 'bad guys' at first, did she not? Does she know something I am not aware of?" He gestured at Mycroft to 'go on'.

Mycroft hissed in displeasure. "Of course I'm not trying to kill her. Don't be gauche. That's someone else's job." He brushed some imaginary dust off his jacket lapel and looked very prissy. Sherlock stared at him with both eyebrows raised and John popped back into the room looking even more shocked and horrified.

He looked up and with an expression of extreme consternation Mycroft blurted out, "Oh, don't be stupid! I am trying to protect her and, God help me, I thought this," he was waving around the flat, "was a good idea! We really ought to have simply abducted her from the airport and secreted her in some secure location. Why would we be concerned about kidnapping an American citizen who might turn out to be at the center of a multi-national incident?"

John looked thoughtful as he said, "You think leaving her with us would give someone or _someones _the idea that she's here of her own free will when really we're her jailers?" Mycroft glared peevishly at him.

Sherlock sighed quietly. "Of course, she's being watched. That's why we were lurking about across the street. We were attempting to watch the watchers!" He threw himself farther back in his chair and began drumming his fingers impatiently on the armrests. "She's fine here, Mycroft. As the Americans say…'butt out'…"

Mycroft shook his head sternly. "No. I want you to take her to Swansea tomorrow."

"Why?" Sherlock and John cried in unison.

"Why not? It's lovely there." Mycroft was suddenly enjoying himself as he gloated over his little brother. "Primarily there is a professor at the university whom I need to speak with her on Monday. You drive out tomorrow. I'll have a car here in the morning to collect you."

John stammered, "Co…collect us? We're going to be chauffeured?"

Mycroft smiled, which was disconcerting. "Only to a point. You see, John…you're going to Blackpool."

"I don't want to go to Blackpool!"

"And I don't want to go to Swansea. Or Blackpool!" Sherlock sounded outraged.

Shrugging ever-so-slightly, Mycroft said, "And I don't care where you two don't want to go. You, Sherlock, will take Veranda to Swansea and you, John, will take your girlfriend to Blackpool. Of course, she will have to wear a wig and there's a slight chance she might be murdered, but she didn't offer any objections when I spoke with her."

John's whole body sagged. "You've been talking to my girlfriend?"

"Yes. Of course. Decent woman. Not entirely certain what she sees in you, though."

That was too far even for Sherlock. "Mycroft! Shut up! You're making things worse."

"Very well." As Mycroft got up he straightened his jacket and smoothed out his trousers. His voice was icy and filled with a perfectly calculated dose of venom, "I will leave you to your preparations for your delightful little driving holidays…think of it as a nice, _romantic_ getaway."

If Sherlock felt anything at all his mask of neutrality betrayed none of it. John, on the other hand, was still flabbergasted. "Why are we driving? Can't we just take the train?"

Mycroft paused at the door. "I think it would be safer to be in a car rather than trapped on a train. And don't think for a second that you will be the only people who have decided to go sight-seeing." He sauntered out and left John making small incoherent angry noises while Sherlock stared into space over his steepled fingers.

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1 "Ghost of a Chance" written by Neil Peart, performed by Rush, 1991

2 "Idiot Wind" written and performed by Bob Dylan, 1974


	9. Be Careful What You Ask For

**AN: Vague allusions to domestic violence. Just throwing that out there in case someone is sensitive.**

It was nearly three hours later when Sherlock passed by John in the kitchen. He was still grumbling as he pulled his clothes out of the washer/dryer. He looked up at Sherlock with an intensely annoyed expression. "I have dinner reservations at 7 pm with Cathy…and here I am doing laundry for a holiday I don't want to take, courtesy of your brother!"

Sherlock shrugged nonchalantly. "You still have plenty of time. I hope you and Candy have a nice meal." He had his hand on the doorknob to his bedroom as John growled, "Cathy! Cathy! Jesus!" Sherlock turned around and before he could speak John was yelling, "Shut up, already!" With a gesture of mock defeat, Sherlock walked into his room and left John to seethe on his own.

He looked down with dismay at the woman asleep on his bed. She was wrapped tightly around his coat and he was afraid she might have wrinkled it. He sat on the edge of the bed and began shaking her shoulder with one hand and trying to wrestle the coat from her grasp with the other. She moaned softly and then murmured something that sounded a bit like, "Leave me alone." He kept up his efforts and got a more distinct, "No." from her, but he wasn't making any progress. He paused for a second and with a wary frown, brushed the hair away from the side of her face and tucked it behind her ear. Her eyes popped open and she was looking all around, obviously disorientated.

She finally focused on him and her eyes grew even wider. She got halfway up onto one elbow as she realized she was lying on his bed, cuddling his coat and that she looked like a bit of fool in the process. She was also too light-headed to do much damage control at that moment. She let her head droop and whispered, "I am so sorry. I'm…"

Sherlock shook his head and said quietly, "No. I'm the one who should be apologising. Here…sit up…and I'll get you some water." He helped her lean against the headboard and put the other pillow behind her head. Then he stood up and spread his coat over her with a slight flourish.

He returned with the glass and looked uncertainly at the bed. He chose to sit at a point that implied a closer relationship than a doctor, but more distant than one's mother. Veranda opened her eyes as his weight shifted the mattress and seemed to be disappointed? Sad? Tired? Perhaps all of the above?

Sherlock handed her the glass, took a deep breath and consciously kept his voice soft and pitched down a bit. "I would like to apologise to you for being deliberately abstruse and withholding what little information I have. As you have no doubt guessed, the man who…assaulted you earlier…is my older brother Mycroft. I also apologise for his behaviour. He is a government official and sometimes takes his position as carte blanche to invade people's lives…" His tone of voice suggested that he often felt his brother's intrusions.

Veranda croaked, "Government official? Is he the one who put you up to this? He was the guy hiding behind a newspaper when you shanghaied me from the airport. That's why I screamed bloody murder when he barged in the door while you guys were gone. I thought I was about to become a bloody murder-victim!"

"He is the one who requested that I take your case and..."

Veranda interrupted him, "So I _am_ a case?"

"A highly unusual one, but yes. I very seldom end up with clients in my bed...repeatedly."

"I'm on your bed, not in it. And you're getting paid for this." There was a small, but recognizable, pang of distress in her voice.

"I receive no financial recompense for the services I render to my brother. We work on a purely quid pro quo basis. He uses me and I, in turn, use him."

His answer seemed to mollify her only slightly. "What does he do? For the government?"

He shrugged. "Even I don't know the extent of his responsibilities…or his power. He is one of the most dangerous people I know. At this time he has the upper hand over me and I am operating at a disadvantage. If he knows who is behind this murder plot, he won't tell me. If he knows what is so important that 6 people have died for it, he won't tell me. If he knows why it is imperative to keep you alive…"

"He won't tell you. Got it," said Veranda. "Anyway, 7 people have died. Viktoria was pregnant."

"Touché. My point is that we are once again at Mycroft's mercy. He has decided that you need to speak, in person, with a professor at the university in Swansea. Do you recall knowing any such person?"

She looked surprised. "No. Where's Swansea?"

Sherlock began rolling his eyes and then stopped halfway through. "I suppose you wouldn't. It's 3 or 4 hours west of here. Do you know where Wales is?"

She cocked her head. "It's part of Great Britain! They suffered a massive shortage of vowels way back when and they've never recovered! Is it by Stonehenge?"

"Not really, no. Never mind…I'll be driving so it won't matter to you." He resisted the urge to mock her further and gritted his teeth. "I was attempting to say 'I'm sorry' because I abducted you at my brother's behest. I have held you against your will, lied by omission and now I have to bundle you off across the country so that I may deliver you to an unknown person of my brother's choosing. Sorry. Remind me to never try apologising again."

He made to get up and Veranda grabbed him by the hem of his jacket. "No, no, no. Don't. It's not that bad." She looked doubtful. "Actually…it is…but it's not your fault. You've been exceptionally kind to me, under the circumstances, and I sincerely appreciate what you've done…whatever you've done. I'm certain it has been more than I've noticed. You've put up with me and that's more than a lot of people can cope with. Thank you." She smiled at him, completely guileless.

He watched her for a few moments and felt helpless to stop the smile that tugged at the corners of his mouth. "Are you hungry? It's early evening and I imagine you must be. Do you like Chinese? There's a delightful little takeaway place down the street…"

She nodded numbly. "Fine. That'd be great. Thank you. Again."

He stood and looked back at her. "Anything in particular you'd like?"

She shook her head. "I'll eat anything that doesn't move. So, no live octopus. And I don't remember the Chinese doing sushi." She grinned lopsidedly and began her uncoordinated effort to get up as he took his coat and put it on in one smooth motion while walking out the door.

She finally made it upright and after standing for minute or two until the world quit swimming, she spread out the wrinkles in the bedspread and fluffed his pillows back up. Her mind was wandering to places she wished it wouldn't. She remembered the kiss on the cheek, that _look_ and the 'darling' and her stomach flipped.

How much she wanted it to mean something when she knew damn well it didn't. It couldn't. Did it? No, no way. But why? It seemed like a stupid game. His brother didn't seem to be the kind to care one way or the other. It had to be a power play. He wanted his brother to think that he was pleased to have her around so that Mycroft no longer had the edge in forcing Sherlock to do something he didn't want to. That was it. It had to be it. Because Sherlock had not been flirting with her. No way, no how. And she didn't want him to. Nope, nope, nope.

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Dinner was pleasant, although conducted in complete silence. John had gone out to meet his girlfriend so it was just her and Sherlock. She was still groggy and Sherlock was apparently not in the mood for idle chit chat. He never was, but she had proved herself capable of holding up both ends of a conversation by herself.

After eating she carefully folded herself up into John's chair and wrapped herself around a cup of tea. Sherlock had draped himself on the sofa and was pretending to read a magazine. Veranda looked absolutely mournful. She was a pathetic sight, but he did not have the faintest clue what to say to her. He thought it odd that he wanted her to feel better, but she was like a black hole of unhappiness and it was beginning to negatively affect his mood. He briefly considered texting John for advice, but he remembered the last time he had interrupted one of John's dates and it was not an experience he wished to repeat.

Finally he sat up and somewhat loudly tossed the magazine onto the coffee table. Veranda looked over to the source of the noise and then to him, slowly blinking and eventually raising an eyebrow in query.

He put his head in his hands and tousled his hair. He met her dumbfounded stare and asked her, "What would you like to talk about?"

That resulted in a second eyebrow joining the first and a silent, "What?"

He flung himself against the back of the sofa and spread his long arms across the top. "Anything at all. Just stop looking like you wish you could will yourself to die."

She opened her mouth to say something, but hesitated and took a sip of tea instead. Her eyebrows knit together in thought, but she just shrugged. "I'm fine. Everything's…fine. I'm sorry. I don't mean to be bringing you down." Her eyes narrowed a bit before she added, "Why are you even paying attention? Is it that bad?"

"Yes," he replied with complete conviction. He waved a hand at her. "Tell me about your ring. You never did tell me why you wear an engagement ring to no one."

She shook her head weakly and said, "You don't really want to know."

"Ah, but I'm asking you a direct question. That conveys an explicit desire for an answer. Edify me."

She put her left hand out to the fire and wiggled her ring with her thumb as she sucked her upper lip between her teeth in deep reflection. "I was actually married to a guy. A long time ago. A long, long time ago. In a galaxy far, far away." She smiled at her joke and at him, but he just gestured for her to continue.

"Anyway. I got married to the wrong person, for the wrong reasons and all I got was this stupid ring." Sherlock glared at her with the implication that he was expecting her to be serious.

She sagged back into the chair. "I was 25. I thought I should get married because that's what normal people _do_ at that age. I hadn't dated in years, ever since the guy I had to hit with a frying pan tried to shoot the woman he was two-timing me with. So when this yahoo came around," she was flashing her ring at Sherlock, "I thought I could take him in a fair fight and when he proposed, I married him. It was not one of my finer moments."

"Why did you hit someone with a frying pan?" He looked as aghast as he sounded.

She waved, casually dismissive. "He blacked one eye and he was going to black the other…so I walloped him with the nearest weapon at hand…a frying pan. I still wish it had been cast iron. I would have done the world a favor had I killed him. Instead he went on to damage and destroy dozens of other lives long after I ran away."

Sherlock licked his lips nervously. He had not really expected her story to get so dark so quickly. "Is domestic violence a common occurrence…?"

"In the rotten little hell-hole where I grew up? Yes. That place ate people's souls and ruined their lives. There were no jobs and no prospects so people let their anger loose on whatever didn't move out of the way fast enough. The rampant alcoholism did not help."

His eyes narrowed with suspicion. "Your father was an architect?"

She laughed derisively. "Aw, hells naw. He spent most of his time as an out-of-work car mechanic."

"And your mother?"

"Mom was an accountant whose career mostly consisted of waiting tables due to the aforementioned rotten little hell-hole. I was raised poor white trash. Thank God I didn't buy into anything I was taught. It's one of the reasons why my accent is so bad."

"You have no discernible regional accent. Barring a few odd inflections, you sound like an American newscaster. I do detect a handful of varied British pronunciations which have been steadily increasing in number and strength since we met."

"Yeah, that's going to happen. I broke my hillbilly accent deliberately. I practiced and practiced until nobody could figure out where I was from. Then I added in the British diction just to be obnoxious. It's only going to get worse, the longer I'm here, because I have a huge problem with mimicry. I don't even notice I'm doing it, but I will eventually pick up your mannerisms too. I'll apologize for that in advance. I'm not doing it to make fun of you..."

"I sincerely hope that I do not do this..." He was fluttering his fingers around in limp circles.

She giggled. "No. No, that's just me. I act more like a man than a woman 99 percent of the time, but then I try to compensate with all these mincing gestures. I developed into some sort of biologically female drag queen in an effort to stop scaring people. It's been working OK for years, now. I'm not a nasty person...not anymore...and I had to do something to be more approachable. I mean, I'm loyal to the death...after that, all bets are off...but, I couldn't get close enough to anyone to prove it until I figured out how to act more human. Unfortunately, I have trouble not going to extremes...so yeah, I'm a mess."

Sherlock briefly felt compelled to agree with her, but the urge evaporated almost as fast as it surfaced. Instead he asked, "What about your name?"

"Maybe there was an 'Architectural Digest' in the waiting room? More like a 'Family Handyman'. It must have seemed like a good idea at the time. Like Veronica or Amanda or something normal. Most people do a double-take and then let it go. I cooked up a flip story about my parents because it's generally nobody's business about the LaBrea Tar Pit that I clawed my way out of."

"Why didn't people just leave if it was that bad?"

Veranda put her tea cup down and seemed to be having a problem getting her legs unfolded from the chair. She finally stood up and crossed the room to stand before Sherlock. "Because people are _afraid_. They're afraid of the unknown and they're afraid of making mistakes. They live their lives filled with fear and they let it paralyze them to the point where they aren't living at all."

He was looking up at her, stunned. "But you're not afraid…?"

She snorted. "Oh good God, yes I am. I've spent my whole life terrified. However, I never confused my fear of what could be with my fear of what would be. I banked on my belief in myself. I knew I was smart and I knew I could think fast on my feet so I felt I could out-fox almost everyone and disentangle myself from almost anything. I've very seldom been wrong."

"I am not a nihilist, Sherlock. Just because I can't accept the answers does not mean I don't find the questions worth asking. Most people don't even want the answers because they might be expected to _do_ something with them. My life looks like a series of catastrophes because I run head-long into problems rather than running away from them. I can't stop asking questions and seeking solutions. I am always in pursuit of the truth, even though I suspect it's usually just a lie told from a different perspective."

She looked at him beseechingly. "Tell me you understand. Tell me there is one other person in the world that knows what I'm on about. I can't be alone…"

With that, she climbed over his lap and knelt carefully on the sofa, perched astraddle his knees. She put her hands on his shoulders as if to shake him, but instead pleaded, "Tell me, please!" She leaned forward slightly and stared straight into his eyes. They were the color of glacial ice, which was usually a perfect description of the man behind them. Now, however, his expression had softened slightly and he winced as he shook his head.

"Veranda, you are not thinking straight."

"No? No, I'm not. But…God-damn if you are not beautiful."

Sherlock's eyes got as wide as saucers as he struggled to catch up with her emotional whip-sawing. "OK, now I know you've completely lost the plot."

"That doesn't mean you aren't beautiful. You look like something out of a museum. Like 'David', only cuter…and with clothes…" Veranda hung her head. How was she ever going to live this down? She grabbed his left hand and took it in both her own, bending his long, slender fingers over hers as she drew it up to eye level. His hand was warm as she stroked his fingers with her thumbs and admired the elegant shape of each digit. She knew her hands were cold as the Crypt-keepers' as she pressed her cheek to his hand and sighed sadly. When she looked back up at him, he seemed a bit glazed so she planted a deliberate kiss on his knuckles before replacing his hand by his side.

She was looking at him with a wistfulness that was quickly overrun by her returning woe. Her shoulders slumped and she shook her head down until her chin rested on her collar bone. He was absolutely silent save for his measured breathing. She looked him in the eye again and was struck how they had changed. They were now the color of sea glass and it made a lump rise in her throat. "I am so sorry." She nearly choked on the words and the druggy haze seemed to vaporize with the burning shame she felt in her cheeks. "So, so sorry. I am being completely inappropriate and I apologize for being an idiot." She squeezed her eyes shut and pressed her lips into a thin line for moment before shifting her weight to get back to her feet.

Sherlock was nearly as surprised as Veranda was when he brought his hands up to rest on her waist. She froze at the restraining motion and it seemed like a lifetime before she remembered to breathe again. Her pupils had been dilated from the dimness of the room, but they continued to grow until they nearly eclipsed her steel grey irises. She stared at him in unvarnished shock with her pale lips parted slightly as she mouthed, "Oh my God," over and over.

Veranda moved to rest her hands lightly on either side of his shirt collar. The expensive fabric was crisp and silky under her fingertips as she caressed him with a minute motion. She could feel the warmth of his skin through the shirt and soon just laid her palms flat against his chest with her hands in a 'V' along his open collar. She closed her eyes and took a long, shuddering breath which she let out very, very slowly as she deliberately made herself relax her shoulders. Sherlock was still watching her carefully when she opened her eyes again and smiled wanly. "I am kind of messed up. It's not a pretty sight, is it?" Her smile grew crooked and self-deprecating.

He cocked his head one way and then the other in an appraising gesture. The corners of his mouth quirked up in a faint smile before he said, "What would John think if he saw us like this?"

His voice sent a shiver up her spine even as his words made her heart sink. Veranda raised an eyebrow and replied, "_I_ don't know what to think of us like this."

Sherlock's smile broadened. "That makes three, then. Women aren't really my thing." Veranda looked mortified and pulled her hands back to her chest. He shook his head, "Men aren't either." Her expression shaded into something more confounded than embarrassed and she dropped her hands into her lap. It took her a split second to realize that she'd nearly groped him and quickly brought her hands back up in a comical gesture.

He laughed softly and tugged at her so she slid a couple inches down his thighs. Veranda watched his face with consternation, looking for any sign that he was playing a cruel joke. The smile faded from his lips, but his eyes were still full of mirth as he took first one wrist and then the other and put both of her hands back on his chest before replacing his hands around her waist. He pulled her a few inches closer, paused and when she offered no resistance, drew her down until she settled in the hollow of his hips.

Veranda felt her mouth go dry and she swallowed hard. The lump in her throat was back and she was very dizzy. Of course…she _was_ hyperventilating. How did she get here? For she was nestled quite comfortably in Sherlock's lap with her hands over his heart…a heart that was beating with enough vigor that she could feel his chest shudder with every contraction. She was fairly sure her heart had simply stopped. It might have been fibrillating, but her body was numb and she couldn't tell.

Sherlock and Veranda stared blankly at each other for several minutes. Awkward confusion hung thick in the air. If John had walked in on them, he would have commented that they looked like their operating systems had crashed.

Veranda managed to reboot first. She broke her gaze free and watched her left hand, apparently of its own volition, reach up to sweep Sherlock's bangs to the side. He _was_ beautiful, looking for all-the-world like a Carrara marble statue of a forgotten god. His eyes were the blue of an immaculate swimming pool and she would have given whatever she had left just to drown in them for the rest of time.

Languidly, she brushed a fingertip along the sensuous curve of his lower lip. He looked a bit unnerved, but otherwise didn't react. His lips were full and perfect, like they had been carved by an artist with an eye for exquisite detail. She wanted to kiss them, to feel them; soft, pliant, warm and so very real. Instead, she dropped her hand back to his chest and sighed softly as her eyes fell shut. All of her conflicting emotions had collided and were sitting a heap of smoldering wreckage. She didn't know what to feel anymore.

Sherlock got the subtle sense that Veranda was on the verge of crying and he was fairly certain that it wasn't him she was going to be crying for. He was actually relieved that she wasn't trying to seduce him and that he wouldn't have to figure an artful way to extricate himself. It wasn't that he was completely opposed to having sex with her, or anyone for that matter. The physicality of the act was simple enough…tab A in slot B, but human sexual relationships were fraught with complications. He had watched John go through enough that he was content with never experiencing all the trouble firsthand.

Still, her weight and warmth was situated right where he felt it most acutely. This was his fault, he recognized, and he didn't want to dislodge her and pour the salt of rejection into her already raw wounds. He couldn't quite appreciate what had made him pull her closer in the first place. She had, without invitation or provocation, violated his personal space. It was an ominous upping of the ante, given that she had previously tipped her hand about her physical attraction to him. However, rather than rebuff what appeared to be a sexual advance, he had reciprocated to the point of escalating the encounter. If he was given to smacking himself in the forehead, he would do it right now.

Instead, he reached up to stroke her hair where it fell over her shoulder. He ran his fingers through it and marveled at how it looked like spun silver, hanging in loose waves well past her breasts. Her hair wasn't grey and it wasn't white; it was bright and shiny like a freshly polished tea set.

Slowly her cheeks got more and more pink and her nearly colorless lips reddened slightly. She looked like a painted porcelain doll with the warm flush contrasting against her translucent ivory skin. She had only faint lines beside her mouth and across her forehead to mark the passage of her youth. His frown lines and crow's feet were far more pronounced and he was 15 years her junior. He wondered how she remained so young-looking as he searched her face and saw no evidence of a face lift. As exaggerated as her expressions could be, he knew she hadn't had any Botox. She was just one of those odd people who refused to age appropriately and he smiled at the thought. She was impossible, just like him.

Sherlock brushed the side of her face and her eyes flew open. She blinked back her tears and looked at him, weary but with undisguised longing. He was afraid he had started something he didn't know how to finish, but her shoulders sagged again under some unseen weight and she said, "I would like to go to bed now, but someone is sitting on my couch."


	10. Highways and By-the-Ways

Veranda was bored and nervous. She fidgeted in passenger's seat of the silver Fiesta and wished desperately for something to do with her hands. She and Sherlock had been driving for what seemed like days, even though it had been less than 3 hours since they left London the first time. This was the fifth car they'd been in today and the first time she was absolutely certain they were heading west. She had no idea where they were or where they'd been and Sherlock was not volunteering information.

In fact, he hadn't spoken one word to her since they got in the black Jag in the underground parking garage where they said 'goodbye' to John and his girlfriend Cathy. Everyone had been struck by the resemblance after Cathy put her wig on. Veranda didn't know she had so many doppelgangers out in the world.

They'd driven north for a bit, then east and then exchanged cars with John and Cathy in some charming little town she had no clue about. Then they went south and right through the bleedin' middle of London where they stopped at Heathrow to get a dark blue Peugeot. She thought they only made bicycles. After that Sherlock had driven northwest for quite a while before hanging a left on some barely paved horse trail where they had spent quite a lot of time waiting for a herd of sheep to get off the road. After one more stop in a nameless hamlet where they got the Ford, they were finally going due west. She knew Wales was to the west so maybe they were finally going to get where they were going instead of wandering aimlessly in circles.

The landscape was endless and dreary with jagged grey rocks breaking out of the sodden grey hills covered with lifeless grey vegetation. Wispy tendrils of grey fog embraced the grey vista that blended into the grey sky. It was a lot of grey and it felt like the perfect setting for the grey mood of the grey-haired grey-eyed woman looking at it from a grey car.

"Where _are_ we?" she finally questioned with a touch of whine to her voice. She resisted the urge to ask if they were there yet.

"The M4." Sherlock stated flatly without taking his eyes off the road. He sounded stuffed up and Veranda wondered if it was the weather or all the smoke he persisted in creating inside the small apartment. She hissed through her teeth. "The M4 is a freeway, not a place. That's like saying I-5 is California because it runs from one end to the other."

"I suggest you read the signs that have been located at the roadside for your convenience."

"Kiss my grits, Sherlock! Why have you suddenly decided to ramp up the asshole routine?" She sighed heavily and thumped her head against the window. "I don't know where we are. I don't have a map. You're the only one who can see the flippin' GPS. The road signs might as well be telling me that we're on Mars. Why are you in such a bad mood?"

"I'm not." He still refused to even look over at her.

"Don't give me that. The irritation is rolling off you in waves. Are you mad at your brother for making you do this?"

"Reading."

Veranda swiveled her head in confusion. "What?"

Sherlock finally gave her a side-eyed glance. "You asked where we are and I told you. Reading. Actually just passed it a short while ago."

"Oh." Then a bit more brightly than she intended, "Spelled read-ing, but pronounced red-ing…like Redding, California. But spelled like Reading, Pennsylvania."

Sherlock sucked his cheeks in just a fraction before replying, "You realize England was founded some years before America?"

Veranda stuck her tongue out at him. "I got schooled when I went to Pennsylvania and mispronounced Reading. You really don't want to talk about Mycroft?"

He was again staring straight ahead at the road as he overtook a Transit. "Not in the slightest."

She nodded. "OK, fair enough."

He heaved a mental sigh of relief when she didn't say anything further. Nearly an hour passed and he thought she might be asleep. Suddenly she piped up, "Yellow car!"

He groaned out loud. "No. No. For God's sake, don't start!"

She giggled. "Oh, come on…"

He shook his head vigorously. "No. I know very well what you're up to and I get enough of it from John. He adores 'Cabin Pressure' and has subjected me to it against my will on numerous occasions. He claims I sound like the captain and he finds it extremely amusing."

"Well. You do." Sherlock looked very grim when she glanced over. "Fine. You know the guy who does the captain also narrates books? When he does an American accent he sounds like Tom Selleck."

"I don't care."

Veranda slumped in her seat. "I guess you wouldn't. Spoilsport. I can recite a lot of Monty Python?"

She cleared her throat, but he cut her off. "Shut up. Now."

She sagged back against the window and Sherlock was grateful for the next stretch of silence even though it was too short by half.

"Where are the moors?" she asked out of nowhere.

He watched her out of the corner of his eye. "Why?" he drawled carefully.

"Oh, you know…'Wuthering Heights'. Heathcliff and Catherine…all that folderol."

"The other side of the country…hundreds of miles north." He wanted to roll his eyes, but he knew it wasn't the American's fault for not knowing British geography. He wasn't 100 percent sure he could find Washington DC on a map of the US. It wasn't important to him and his work so he never bothered to retain the information if he had ever been exposed to it. "There are moors southwest of here, in Devon…"

Veranda almost squealed. "Oh yeah! 'Hound of the Baskervilles'! That's…there's more than one moor?" She gasped and her face fell. She looked like she had just found a slug in her salad. "That's just sad." She was still making an 'ew' face when she asked with new vigor, "Where was 'Jane Eyre'?"

"Yorkshire. Same as 'Wuthering Heights'. Far away from here." Sherlock shook his head at the idea that she got all her impressions of England from 150 year old Gothic romances. "This area has plenty of its own myths and legends. It didn't need the Brontë's assistance."

She looked unimpressed. "I grew up in a state bigger than Great Britain."

"Britain or England?" he asked sharply.

"Britain. I know the difference. I spent a lot of time watching Doctor Who, Monty Python, James Bond and The Young Ones. I'm addicted to Top Gear UK." With unbridled enthusiasm she exclaimed, "I'm an Anglophile!"

Sherlock groaned in mock torment. "If you are so enamoured of our country, why are you so easily disorientated?"

"Disoriented."

"Disorientated."

"Disoriented."

"Provincial."

"Toffee-nosed twit."

"Toffee-nosed? What have I ever done to deserve that? And I most certainly object to being labeled a 'twit'." At least Sherlock was laughing now.

Veranda snorted in annoyance. "We are not even going to go there. Scotland is north, Wales is west and England is everything else."

"What about Ireland?"

"Ireland is a whole different country. Northern Ireland is part of the United Kingdom, but it isn't on the _island of Great Britain_…which is why I said what I said."

"Not bad…for an American," he said grudgingly.

"I can recognize place-names, but I would need a map to find them…so I can get _oriented_." She was refusing to let him goad her into getting irritated.

Sherlock sniffed self-righteously. "Bah. It isn't my fault you caahn't speak proper English."

At long last, a companionable silence fell in the car.

Traffic had thinned out as the afternoon faded into twilight. There was nothing but the thrumming of the tyres on the pavement and the occasional squeak of plastic from somewhere under the dashboard.

Sherlock's mind had ranged far and wide as so little of it was actually occupied with the task of driving on an uncrowded motorway. Despite his best efforts to keep it working on other projects, it kept coming back to the woman who was almost catatonic in the left hand seat of the car. He could no longer avoid the awful truth: She was beginning to get under his skin. Sometimes she seemed to know him better than he knew himself and it was disconcerting. He mentally recoiled at the thought and wondered why she didn't use her insight against him like Mycroft so often did. She kept advocating for him to be less unpleasant and holding herself up as a rather bedraggled example of someone who was farther along in the transformation. On the surface, her endeavour was daft, but he feared her assessment of him was accurate and it made him feel vulnerable.

He stretched slowly and deliberately, like a cat, and rolled his head this way and that to loosen his neck muscles. From the corner of his eye, he saw her take in every motion as she studiously tried to not pay him any attention.

"Your non-engagement ring," he started apropos of nothing. "The story last night was interrupted by several assaults and at least two attempted murders. Would you care to bring it to a conclusion? I assume there are more bodies lying littered in the narrative?"

The Bronx cheer escaped before she could stop it. "No. No grand adventure. Only the prosaic tale of a young woman who was sold a bill of goods by people who, maybe…maybe not, had her best interests in mind. And she was naïve enough to believe them and not do the thinking for herself."

Sherlock found himself frustrated by her unusual reluctance to talk. "Do go on. I really want to know 'the rest of the story'."

"Why?"

"Because I think it genuinely means something to you. Something important. A guidepost in your life…like your snippets of songs."

Now she was looking askance at him. "But why? Why would you care? It'd be like a sign written in Martian. It might tell me where I'm going, but it would mean nothing to you."

He found himself gritting his teeth and was only partially successful in relaxing his jaw. "Perhaps I'm trying to learn Martian? I…am on a journey…and I'm trying to get orientated…oriented…orientated!" Gah! This was impossible! "Just, please. Finish your story. And know that I actually want to hear it?"

She pursed her lips and looked highly unconvinced, but began anyway. "I got married to a guy I thought I could beat up, if it came to that. I didn't go into it believing I would have to, but it was a fallback plan. A contingency, if you will. In reality, my subconscious was screaming and throwing flags down on the field, but I wasn't paying her any attention. Society had me thoroughly brainwashed. I was at the age where most of my peers were already either coupled-up, married, married-with-children or divorced and working on their second divorce." She chuckled at her own joke.

"So I got married. I wanted to fit in. I found a guy who was soft-spoken and outdoorsy and seemed to genuinely like me for who I was. He didn't care that I had one more degree than he did…he didn't care that I made more money than he did. In fact, he liked it because he had two kids already and his ex-wife took him to the cleaners. He said he liked that I was smart and that I could make my own way in the world. It was great for a couple of years."

"Then it started. The cutting remarks…the put-downs…the left-handed compliments. Now, keep in mind that at this point…I'm still telling complete strangers that I'm some sort of dhamphir and I'm dedicated to verbally _destroying_ people 'cause I think it's fun. But I didn't do it to him. Even I knew that you were supposed to be nice to the person you married."

"It confused the hell out of me! I didn't know why I deserved it, but obviously I must have done because otherwise he would be nice to the person he married? Right? Wrong. It turned out he was a passive-aggressive nightmare straight out of the DSM-III. So we went on for a while like that. I knew it was messed up, but I didn't know what to do about it. I even left him at one point, but I went back because he promised he would change. Classic, really."

"Eventually he pulled out the big guns…said that I made him say those things to me because I wouldn't 'behave'. He said I had an overly well-developed sense of self-preservation. Well, I knew I was many things, but a martyr to someone else's mental illness? I had been there and gotten the t-shirt and I wasn't going there again. So I packed up my belongings, left and I've tried to never look back."

"That's what this ring symbolizes." She held it up in front her face, silhouetted against the oncoming headlights. "I wear my old engagement ring to remind myself that I am responsible only for my own actions. I don't owe anyone happiness and I'm not at fault if they choose to be miserable. Society can fuss and fume, but I don't need to conform…it was a tricky few years, ironing out where the line was…of what I actually had control over and where other people sincerely had to step up."

"Luckily, I ran into someone…the best friend I could ever ask for…who was like a rock. A lighthouse on a rock…in the stormy sea…Gawd, that's a cheesy metaphor…innit? Anyway. I've told you about him already. He'd stumbled and struggled and thrashed around in his life until he finally sort of figured out what he was really about and how you could be yourself and still relate to regular people. He was a _great_ man when I met him and he helped me become a _good _woman. I'm still striving for greatness, but I know it's not something you can honestly see in yourself. You have to see it reflected in the eyes of those around you."

She looked over at Sherlock, his pale skin glowing in the reflected light. He looked meditative, his well-defined lips pressed into a line as he worried them between his teeth. He turned to her suddenly and said in a conspiratorial tone, "You were right. Martian." Then he laughed. It was unselfconscious and rang merrily around the interior of the little car.

She threw her hands up in surrender and began laughing with him. "I give up, kid. You might never get it." They tapered off into sporadic giggles and chuckles and finally settled into reflective, smiling silence.

They checked into the seaside inn around 6 pm. Veranda wasn't sure how it had taken the better part of a day to drive a couple hundred miles west. Mycroft must have sent them off on the most circuitous route his devious mind could have imagined. Good God, but those two must hate each other.

Her attention was caught when the proprietor thanked 'Mr. Somerset' and wished he and 'his missus' a nice stay. When they went out to the car to get their bags she snarled at Sherlock, "Lemme guess. David and Caroline Somerset?"

He looked down at her with utter surprise. "Yes. What?"

She growled, "Remind me to kick your brother in the kneecap next time I see him."

As they walked to the door of their room Sherlock remarked, "At this point, I'll hold him down for you. However, I suspect our reasons are different. Would you care to enlighten me?"

"David and Caroline Somerset are the fake names for James Bond and Tatiana Romanova in 'From Russia with Love' and I am going to hurt your brother when I get the chance, because he deserves it for trying to be funny." Her anger was palpable.

"Mycroft doesn't bother with humour. It was probably one of his assistants having a laugh." He opened the door and gestured her inside. "You can still kick him. Repeatedly, if you wish. I shan't stop you."

The room was actually a suite; the front part was furnished as a lounge with a fireplace, flat-screen television, microwave and mini-fridge in a built-in cabinet. The bedroom was farther on and the bathroom was at the end. Veranda steeled herself for the next joke that Mycroft's assistants may have decided to have at her expense. Her sigh of relief was audible when she saw the bedroom had two separate beds. Thank God. She wasn't going to have to spend another night on the couch.

**AN: For those who don't know, 'Cabin Pressure' is a BBC Radio 4 series written by John Finnemore. Benedict Cumberbatch plays Captain Martin Crieff. BC is also the narrator for the audiobook 'Sherlock Holmes: The Rediscovered Railway Mysteries and Other Stories' by John Taylor...and he does a very plausible American accent except for the shibboleth of schedule as 'shedge-ool' instead of the typical Yankee 'skedge-ul'. You can tell BC pitches his voice way-the-hell down for Sherlock because he sounds positively squeaky otherwise.**


	11. I Only Open My Mouth to Change Feet

Shivering as quietly as possible, Veranda edged closer to the fire. She was contemplating how flammable her clothes were and if she could possibly cram herself farther into the hearth without being immolated.

To Sherlock's eye, the fire was roaring and she was far too close to the dancing flames for his comfort. What was wrong with her?

She whimpered under her breath and held her hands out, hoping they would thaw. She was so cold she couldn't feel her fingers, toes or her nose. This whole country was miserably damp and chilly and she hadn't been comfortable for 5 minutes at a stretch since she arrived. She was excruciatingly tired and felt very near the end of her rope. She was going to end up dead quite shortly and there was nothing she could do about it. Sherlock and company were doing what they could for her, but she had no doubt they were up against something larger and more determined than they were.

She wasn't always convinced she wanted to live, but she wasn't that enthused about dying right at the moment either.

Sherlock watched as she sidled closer to the fireplace, her shoulders hunched up as she cowered into its warmth. She shook periodically, shivering violently and he worried that she was somehow becoming hypothermic inside a warm room. He pondered what to do as it slowly struck him that perhaps she was not suffering purely because she was unused to the climate.

She'd faced interrogation by Lestrade, identified the corpses of all her associates, been drugged by an anonymous assailant and terrorized by Mycroft. Worst of all, she presumably was still being stalked by the unknown entity that left 5 of her friends brutally murdered. She was a stranger in a strange land and cast upon unfriendly shores with only him, a distant and moody companion, for comfort and protection.

He wrinkled his nose at the thought. He could physically feel his objectivity slipping as his sympathy for her grew. Something primitive inside him instinctively wanted to gather her into his arms and reassure her that he would take care of her and that she would be all right. A far larger part of him knew that would be a mistake; the compassion would not be entirely a façade, but he could not bring himself to lie about being able to safeguard her from something he so little about. Somehow, the emotions he felt welling up were far more frightening than any faceless killer who could spring out of the shadows. 'Don't get involved!' kept ringing in his ears.

Still...it would be difficult to explain how she got burnt to a crisp while he stood aside and watched it happen. He pursed his lips and let out a small puff of air in frustration. He looked at the ceiling as if asking for divine assistance and then walked over to Veranda and gently grabbed her shoulders, pulling her away from the fire. She straightened slightly, but was stiff as he maneuvered her around to face him and put her back to the hearth. He took a deep breath and stepped forward to awkwardly wrap his arms around her. He stood rigidly and held her like he was embracing a tree.

Veranda choked on the breath she was halfway through taking. She coughed and began to struggle reflexively because he had pinned her arms down. She wiggled and wriggled, but Sherlock rode it out. He snorted softly as he swayed side to side with her feeble show of discontent. She finally took a long draught of air through her nose and squared her shoulders up.

"Are you quite through?" Sherlock asked in a sharp tone incongruous with his actions.

Veranda swallowed hard as his voice rumbled through her ribcage and right down her spine. She hated that sensation. She hated it because it felt so good and she hated him for being able to elicit it without any effort at all. She could listen to him read the Hong Kong telephone directory and she'd probably have a moment before he got past the part about emergency services.

He felt her quake again and relaxed a bit to draw her closer. That resulted in a tremor that might have shown up on a seismograph a thousand miles away. She shook from head to toe so hard she gasped a little bit when it was over.

"Are you all right?" Sherlock queried as he pulled his chin back to look down at her. He was genuinely worried. It was completely unacceptable for her to fall ill now. She quivered again, punctuated by a slight squeak. The pieces fell together very quickly when she suddenly laminated herself to his torso and hugged him so tight she squeezed the air out of his lungs.

It was his turn to start coughing and trying to back away from her. He got his hands up onto her shoulders and pushed her away, but it was useless. She was strong for a woman and he was thin enough that she got a very good grip around his waist. She wasn't going to let go and he wasn't going to get loose without actually hurting her. He sighed heavily and put his arms back around her. His eyes cast around the room trying to understand the mess he'd made. Confused and temporarily beaten, he rested his cheek on the top of her head. "Don't get used to this, Veranda."

They stood in their graceless embrace for some minutes with Veranda breathing raggedly against Sherlock's shoulder. She could hardly hear herself think over the pounding of her heart, but ultimately this was her one chance to make a move on him. If only she was confident she knew what she was doing!

She felt him becoming uncomfortable with the extended contact as he began to fret slightly. He probably hoped that she would take the hint and let go. Instead she squirmed closer and began to press her thigh in between his legs, rubbing against him slowly and gently. He took a sharp breath as a frisson of energy ran through his body. Veranda giggled when she felt him shivering and dragged her fingernails down his back between his shoulder blades. He braced himself and inhaled slowly before sighing softly. He was staring blankly ahead when she looked up at him, but he was definitely blushing.

She leaned away from him, keeping her left arm around his waist and her leg firmly planted between his. She took her free hand and put the index finger on the topmost fastened button of his shirt. She was gazing up at him with her eyes darting around, trying to catch his. He finally locked eyes with her, but his face was vacant. She pouted just a bit and said, "I'm not a very good cougar, am I?"

"A what?" He sounded perplexed.

Veranda arched an eyebrow and said, "A cougar. An older woman who chases after young boy toys."

"_A boy toy_?" Sherlock said each word very carefully, as if they tasted bitter.

Veranda huffed, exasperated. "Well, yes. I…I mean no. You're not a boy toy. Which makes me a lousy cougar. I'm terrible at the whole hunting, capture and kill business. My usual modus operandi is to lay in wait and catch helpless prey when they've been lured in too close to retreat. I'm a trapdoor spider-type, basically."

"A spider?" Sherlock graced her with a befuddled expression.

Veranda shrugged, "Yeah, well...I'd starve to death because I'm really bad at capturing prey under any circumstances, even if they were helpless. You, my dear, are not helpless." She put a fine point on her statement by lightly poking the button under her finger.

Sherlock continued to stare at her, anchored to the spot. If she was honest with herself, Veranda thought he looked like a cow that was watching an oncoming train. She held eye contact and gingerly undid the button under her fingers. They slipped down to the next one and when he failed to acknowledge what had happened in any way, undid that one too. This continued until she had his shirt open all the way to the waistband of his slacks. As the cool air hit him he finally looked down at his bare chest and back up at Veranda. He blinked slowly at her and seemed too dazed to react.

This was what she wanted…so why were her icy, numb fingers starting to tingle like she was going into shock? She opened his shirt a little wider for a better look. He was all sharpened planes and oblique angles…rake thin, with no fat to soften any of his musculature. There was a sparse carpet of fine reddish hair across his pecs, but otherwise he could have been carved from a block of stone.

He wasn't her type! That was it! She liked big, burly guys who could chop wood and wrangle livestock. She liked cowboys! No, no she didn't. Cowboys were annoying. Now…if she could find a _smart_ cowboy. Ugh. She wasn't going to find anyone smarter than Sherlock and she had to grudgingly accept that's what she was responding to. Honestly, he was a bit odd-looking and way too skinny…but he had a voice like pure, distilled liquid sex. And when he smiled at her? That's when she felt the crushing ache that made it so hard to breathe. Maybe it was her diaphragm? Perhaps she should try to stop thinking right now…

She reached out and drew the back of her hand down his chest. She cringed when he gasped softly. God-damn her circulatory system! She snuggled up against him again and laid her cheek to his shoulder with her face nestled into his neck. She held him firmly, but it wasn't the stranglehold it had been.

Her mind wouldn't stop racing and she felt an odd sense of panic rising in the back of her throat. She wasn't naturally dominant and had no idea of what to do next. How the hell were you supposed to seduce a man who wasn't responding in any recognizable fashion? She'd been with guys who were sloppy drunk, hopped up on heavy-duty painkillers and even mostly asleep, but they'd all reacted normally. Actually…there was no 'they' to it…it had all been the same man over the years they were together.

Oh God, no! Not those memories! But it was too late. Suddenly her chest ached like her still-beating heart was being ripped out through her ribcage and her libido crashed like a house of cards. She instantly lost all interest in having sex with Sherlock, but she couldn't make herself let go of him. She was helpless as the hot tears began to run down her cheeks and drip off onto him.

Sherlock was standing like a statue with this strange and unpredictable woman glued to him, his arms around her shoulders because he had no better idea of where to put them. Thoughts were tumbling over each other and he felt them roaring and rushing by in a torrent. His own words echoed around his head…_sentiment is a chemical defect found on the losing side_. But what was there to lose? She wasn't his adversary.

He twitched involuntarily as Mycroft's voice reminded him that caring was not an advantage. Perhaps not, but Veranda's point stood: He wasn't really a sociopath. He had feelings and it was growing increasingly difficult to smother them. At some point he was going to have to figure out how to process his emotions. Still, this was madness…

His internal monologue was rudely interrupted as he felt her choke back a sob, then the cold rivulets streaming down his bare skin. _Now she was crying? _ He was too disturbed to do anything so he stood there with all of his vaunted freewill and agency paralyzed by the woman coming undone in his arms.

Veranda finally regained some of her composure and released him. As she backed away, she looked up and tried to speak but nothing came out at first. Her eyes were still brimming with tears and occasionally one would break loose and roll down her cheek. She waved her hands around in a vague swirling motion that spoke volumes about her turmoil. Finally she stammered out, "I…I'm sorry. I'm being an idiot again. And…and I apologize…for my behavior."

She gestured at his unbuttoned shirt. "I'm really sorry. You…you don't want…this." She waved an index finger back and forth between them. "And I keep pulling stupid stunts and doing things you really don't want done to you. And I'm sorry…because I'm an idiot." She sighed and looked at the floor for a moment before rising to meet his eyes again. She opened her mouth, shut it and then puffed her cheeks out. She grimaced as she reached out and hurriedly closed his shirt over his exposed chest.

Sherlock was watching her quite keenly, his eyebrows knit slightly in concentration. He was thinking of Molly and how she tried to flirt with him, but was far too shy. He thought of The Woman, Irene Adler, who made a meticulously planned grab for power and used every means at her disposal, including him, to achieve her goal. Veranda was in the middle. Her attraction to him was genuine and she had enough confidence to try becoming physical with him, but she was more than a little uncoordinated and kept missing steps in the dance. It didn't help that he couldn't hear the music, either.

He took a step toward her and pulled his shirt loose from his pants. He paused for a moment to watch her eyes open wide before shrugging it off entirely and laying it over a nearby chair. "I'm not ashamed of my body, Veranda. I'm not afraid of this." He used the same motion she had to indicate the two of them. His eyes were locked on hers, but they were dark in the shadows of the firelight. "This isn't a 'stupid stunt'. It isn't something that I don't want…and you're not an idiot, so please cease using that term."

He took another half-step and closed the gap between them. Veranda gulped, her throat suddenly parched. He raised his hand to her face and she flinched slightly, breaking eye contact. One finger tucked under her chin, he tilted her face up so he could stare directly into her eyes again. They stayed like that for what seemed like an eternity before he spoke, low and husky. "I observe and make deductions, but I cannot work without more information. I have no experience to utilize and nothing to extrapolate from. I will not make assumptions. I have not walked down this path before. Lead me, Veranda, or we will both be lost."

She blanched an even whiter shade of pale. This was not going well. In fact, it was becoming the stuff of nightmares. He _was_ a virgin. She never would have imagined having to cope with _that_. She was fairly certain she couldn't deal with it and tried to say so, but her voice was not cooperating. Speechless at his revelation, his faint smile told her he thought it was all very amusing. Finally, half an octave higher than normal, she squeaked out, "I am the last person you want for that…that…job. I mean, blind leading the blind comes to mind. I'm so confused…" She was looking up, down and all around in an attempt to avoid his eyes.

"This isn't what I wanted. Oh God, Kerry warned me and I didn't listen to him. I don't want to hurt you. I don't want to hurt me…I usually end up with the wrong end of the stick because I'm an idie…not…not good at reading people. I don't understand love. The whole concept makes no sense. The best I can give people is devotion, which I artlessly expound as whether I am willing to kill or die for them. It usually puts a damper on the atmosphere." She finished and blew her bangs up in a sign of defeat.

"I can't comprehend love either," he said warmly as he stroked her cheek, "and I'm not asking for your devotion. You obviously wish to have sex with me and I am acquiescing to your desires."

She shook her head slowly. "You can't be serious."

He snarled, a primordial expression of irritation, and grabbed both her wrists to yank her hands up in front of her face. It was an unconscious attempt to prove he had control of the situation.

"I mean exactly what I say." He replied curtly. The firelight was throwing hard shadows onto his angular face that added to his suddenly menacing presence. "You have compromised my personal space and you have made very clear sexual advances on me. I am standing here half-undressed at your hands and up to a few minutes ago, you were rubbing yourself suggestively against my…genitalia…shall we say. I have made the decision to allow you to…what is the vernacular? To colloquially '_take_ my virginity' as if it were a corporeal object and not a foolish notion. I am willing to have sexual relations with you…because…I…I…_enjoy_ …your company…even if I can't begin to fathom why. However, Veranda, I am through playing games. We either finish this now or you will not touch me again."

His eyes drilled into her and he was gripping her hands with a strength that belied his waifish figure. "Do you understand me?" He growled and punctuated it with a hard squeeze.

She cried out, "Yes, yes. Just don't break my arm!"

He threw her hands down and drew his shoulders up as he crossed his arms over his chest. His eyebrows were drawn together tightly and he looked furious.

Veranda was rubbing her wrists and making sure everything still worked. She looked up to him as the trepidation in her eyes was replaced by shocked surprise with a nearly audible record-scratch. She whispered, "You like me?"

His angry frown evanesced and left behind only vapid astonishment. It was several seconds before he seemed to crawl back into his own skin and the life returned to his wide, pale blue eyes.

He gestured, as if presenting himself to her, and smiled incredulously. "I don't suffer fools gladly. We wouldn't be here…at least not like this…if I didn't want to be with you. You're…different…and I like that. You challenge me, but you don't make it a battle of the wills. However, I am deadly serious when I say that I am done with see-sawing back and forth." His voice dropped into its chocolate fondue register. "Are we going to have sex or not, Veranda?"

She took a tentative step backwards and began to look a bit faint. She clamped one hand over her mouth and then the other hand over that one. He still heard the squeak. Her eyes were huge and he could see the tears welling up again. She began blinking, somewhat desperately, and took another step away from him. Finally her hands dropped and took her whole demeanor with them.

"I don't have any condoms."

His gob smacked 'what' came out as more of a shriek than a real word. "You mean to tell me that you have been going on like this…this," he was indicating his state of undress, "and you weren't prepared to see it through?"

She was vaguely waving her hands around again. "I wasn't thinking very clearly."

"Obviously! At any rate, why does it matter? You have gone through menopause…"

Veranda did a double face-palm. "Whether I have or haven't is not germane to this discussion. Neither is the fact I got my tubes tied. I didn't think you were actually a virgin…I thought you might have some with you. Under the widely recognized covenants of, um, sexual…intelligence. Ugh. As the more experienced partner, I can't be teaching you bad habits. And going raw in a non-committed relationship is right up there on the list of things that won't fly. It's the campsite rule. I have to leave you in better shape than when I found you. There's more to be concerned about than just unplanned pregnancy."

Sherlock gaped at her. She was speaking the Queen's English, but the words made almost no sense. "You have a sexually transmitted disease?" Both eyebrows were halfway up his forehead.

"No, no, no! I'm clean! I just can't let you believe that sex without condoms is normal! If I'm going to be your first then I'm going to teach you right!" She was getting very shrill. She threw her hands up in the air and then brought them down on top of her head. "This isn't supposed to be happening…not like this…Kerry is laughing his ass off. I know it."

Sherlock picked his shirt up and put it back on, but paused after fastening only one button. He turned to her, "Who is 'Kerry' and why would he be concerned?"

She took a deep breath and sighed. "Kerry was my 'long-time lover' as you put it originally. He passed away…almost three years ago. Ugh. It seems like yesterday and forever, all at once. Anyway, we'd spoken of it several times, but I reiterated pretty much on his deathbed that I would spend the rest of my life sitting on his headstone bawling my eyes out. He laughed and reminded me that he was going to be cremated. He also told me that I was going to find 'some young buck' and I was going to 'teach him a thing or two'. He was adamant that I would not spend all my time pining for him. I was just as certain that I would never want anyone but him. That's what makes me feel so terrible about…what I feel toward you. I think I'm sullying his memory, but I'm really just fulfilling his prophecy. It's too weird." She shrugged. "You're the first man I have had any interest in since he died. I don't know what it is about you, but there it is."

Sherlock said nothing, but his face contorted with about 5 different expressions all at the same time. It finally settled at something approximating compassionate curiosity. "So, 'Kerry' was the reason you were crying earlier?"

Veranda sighed before saying, "Well, yes. That and the fact pretty much the only friends I have in this world are dead and I'm going to join everyone shortly. It's enough to make anyone a little emotionally unstable. Maybe not _you_, but I hold everything a lot closer to the surface. I'm scared and I'm really off my game. It is what it is."

He seemed confused and at a loss for words, but walked over to stand in front of her again. He put his hands on her shoulders and very earnestly said, "You still have people who care about you. You have made new friends." The word 'friends' was curiously distorted like he had a one-word speech impediment. "We will protect you as best we can and do what it takes to keep you from coming to harm." He caught her chin with his finger and tilted her head up again. "Do you trust me?"

Veranda rolled her eyes. "I don't have a choice, do I?" Sherlock's eyebrows bunched together in irritation.

She quickly stammered, "I trust you. I trust you. I trust _you_. I'm a little sketchy on your brother, though."

He relaxed and smiled a bit ruefully. "You are a wise woman, Veranda."

They stood together in silence for some time, just studying each other's eyes. Veranda was the first to shift slightly and Sherlock looked at her like he had snapped out of a trance. He traced along her lower lip with his thumb and slowly bent down over her to brush his lips against her cheek.

Her body went completely numb in that instant. She felt like an automaton as she put her hands up to gently push him away. "I can't do this. I'm sorry. It was a bad idea from the start and I shouldn't have tried to drag you into it."

His seductive expression quickly dissolved into dismay. "Drag me into what?"

"This. An affair."

"Is that all?"

"It's enough, don't you think?"

He slipped a hand around the back of her neck and slowly pulled her against him. He wasn't sure what he was doing, but whatever it was had an interesting effect on Veranda. Her face went completely slack and her eyes…they had that 'thousand yard stare' like she'd checked out of her own consciousness. She was breathing fast and shallow and was beginning to lean into him like her knees were giving out. It was a little frightening until she blinked a couple of times and whispered, "Oh, God."

His voice was as thick as sweet, dark rum and it had the same warming effect when he asked her, "Are you afraid now?"

Her head bobbed slightly. She mouthed, "Very."

"Afraid of getting involved?"

She nodded again. "But it's too late, isn't it?"

He smiled half-heartedly and cupped her cheek with his other hand. "Very. You didn't want to be alone…but you can't _do_ casual sex, can you? Yet, somehow you weren't really expecting_ this_? Honestly? Neither was I."

He leaned down over her again until he was whispering softly in her ear. He ignored the fact she was trembling uncontrollably. "I'm scared too, but we can't close Pandora's Box. I feel…too much…I don't understand most of it. But I know I won't hurt you…deliberately. Run toward what you're afraid of, no?"

It didn't take much for him to have her face in both his hands, just like in the movies. He pulled back far enough to look into her eyes, glassy and lost. She didn't seem to be breathing even though she was still shaking. This was it. There was nothing else for it…he pressed his lips against hers and prayed he was doing it right.

It was a chaste kiss, but loaded with a promise. After they separated, Sherlock gazed down at her and stroked her cheek as she gasped for oxygen, having finally remembered to breathe.

"Tomorrow," he said simply before leaving her to retire to her own bed in the next room.

Veranda laid awake late into the night, listening to Sherlock breathing quiet and even a few feet away. Everything was a mess and it was just going to get worse. Still, her stomach clenched with a familiar sensation of excitement and dread. Maybe she would welcome death if it all went as pear-shaped as she feared. She entertained no thought that tomorrow night would be anything less than a complete disaster.


	12. Stacked Tolerances

Dawn was barely breaking at 7 am when two phones went off simultaneously, the cacophony of their competing ringtones enough to wake the dead. Veranda blindly grabbed for hers and turned it over to shut it up. It was useless as a phone, but she felt naked without it nearby. Sherlock sat up and began texting someone. She thought he must be very popular in certain circles…ones in different time zones.

Reluctantly she got out of bed and began rummaging through her suitcase, throwing everything on her bed. She'd packed for a vacation and had nothing she felt was suitable for the business ahead. She wanted to look polished and put together. Sherlock had gotten up and was standing behind her, peering over her shoulder at the sorry sartorial display. She looked back at him and suppressed a giggle. They were dressed in yin-yang pajama sets. Her t-shirt was blue and her bottoms mostly grey while his t-shirt was grey and the pants mostly blue. She bet they wore the same size; Sherlock was as skinny as a rat-tailed comb. He seemed to have the same thought as he walked over to his case and carefully unpacked until he found what he was looking for.

He had pulled out a shirt and returned to her where he held it out against her back. Apparently satisfied, he laid it over one of her plum-colored sweaters. He looked at her, standing with her mouth hanging agape at him. Slightly affronted he said, "It coordinates with your jumper…" She had to admit it was the same color and two shades darker…it looked good. She silently damned him and gathered all her clothes up on the way to the bathroom.

Showered and dressed, she stared unhappily into mirror over the dresser. Sherlock's shirt was somewhat too small and it gapped over her bust. The sweater hid a multitude of sins, though. She felt the oxford cloth pull around her shoulders and it was an oddly comforting sensation…as if he had his arms around her. She held onto that thought as she folded the too-long sleeves back over the cuffs of her sweater and began to argue with her hair. She wanted to do something sleek and sophisticated, but she was all thumbs. Eventually she gave up and pulled it back in a ponytail like she always did. She actually preferred short hair, but Kerry had asked her to grow it out and she never had the heart to cut it off even after he was gone. She watched herself in the mirror and could point out every single flaw in her appearance. She looked like a wreck, in her opinion. There was nothing to be done for it, though, so she pulled herself up to her full height and decided to face whatever was coming with every ounce of dignity she had left.

Sherlock came out of the on-suite bathroom, drying his mop of curls with one towel and another wrapped around his waist. He heard Veranda's gasp from across the room and smiled cryptically at her before poking around in his case. He finished drying his hair and threw the towel on the bed before going over to stand behind her in front of the mirror. They stared into each other's eyes in the mirror for a long minute before his expression became hesitant. He bit his lip and looked down at her neck. He put his hands on her waist and looked back at her in the mirror. Her eyes were beginning to widen and one eyebrow was hitching up slowly when he glanced back down. He decided that if he was going to be in for a penny, he had to be in for a pound and leaned down to plant a kiss just above her shirt collar.

He wasn't really expecting her to moan like that, but he didn't need his staggering intellect to deduce that it was a good thing and that he should keep at it. She growled low in the back of her throat, "Don't start trouble. Please."

She was making motions to shake him off so he took her lead and backed away. He looked at her reflection again, though, and stroked her ponytail. "It looks better down, you know," he said gently.

Her shoulders sagged slightly and she shook her head. "It just gets in the way. We need to get breakfast if we're going to get where we're going on time. Where are we going?"

He smiled thinly but there was a lilt to his voice. "That text was to Mycroft. You are to meet Dr. Tarr in his office at the university at precisely 9:30 am. He doesn't have classes on Monday so you have all day together."

"You're not coming with me?" She sounded a bit panicked.

"I'll be around. I won't be the only one there keeping an eye out. Apparently, Mycroft has decided that my tendency to read situations a bit too accurately has the potential to cause a distressing amount of damage—as it has before—so I am best kept as far away from the action as practical. He underestimates me." He winked at her before turning back to finish dressing. Veranda ducked into the sitting area to avoid the temptation to watch.

/-/-/-/-/-/-/-/-/-/-/-/-/-/-/-/-/-/

They stopped at a small café for a quick bite to eat before driving out to the university campus and Veranda had, in Sherlock's eyes, consumed a stunning amount of black coffee in a very short period. He expected her to presently start suffering from the effects of caffeine poisoning as they made their way from the car park. The morning fog had yet to burn off and the air was cold and damp, even to him. Veranda looked like a turtle retreating into its shell as she tried to pull her coat collar up around her ears, chilled, nervous and unhappy.

Sherlock looked around a bit furtively and then smiled to himself as he wrapped an arm around her shoulders and drew her to his side. She stumbled for a couple steps before she got in sync with him and could snuggle appreciatively into the warmth and comfort of his embrace. He seemed to have made a career out of being an oblivious asshole, but every once in a while he branched out into acting like a thoughtful and amiable gentleman. He didn't do a half-bad job of it when he did, but it was undoubtedly damaging to his self-image so he kept his adventures in empathy to a minimum.

Dr. Tarr's office was in the engineering building and it was quite a long walk from where Sherlock had parked the Ford. He'd followed Mycroft's instructions about where to leave the car and which vehicles to park next too, but Veranda didn't know that so she assumed he wanted to park a mile away just to be ornery. It gave her mind several minutes too many to wander from whether she was going to be interviewed or interrogated, to what sex with Sherlock was going to be like and then on to a bitter struggle to get herself to disembark from that train of thought.

She'd been mostly successful in not letting her dirty mind run away from her, but she was still blushing by the time Sherlock disengaged so he could open the door for her. She smiled at him and looked down in one swift motion that gave the impression of extraordinary shyness. He looked after her suspiciously as she ducked into the building, but decided not to spoil what had been a pleasant moment with excessive examination. He was going to have to become accustomed to confusion if he intended to continue his foray into human relationships.

They found Dr. Tarr's office with some difficulty as the whole building seemed to be under construction. Workers were milling about and mixing with the small number of students who were trying to focus in the chaos. Sherlock was working overtime trying to read each and every person to ascertain who they were and whether they belonged. He didn't notice anyone who seemed out of place and therefore a possible problem, but it didn't mean they weren't effectively using the mayhem for cover.

They stood outside the closed door with a sheet of paper taped to it proclaiming 'DR. TARR' in 200 point Courier for a moment and Sherlock turned to face Veranda. First he put his hands on her shoulders and shook her gently, as if to impart some of his own strength into her. Then his composed expression collapsed into a morass of unreadable emotions and he took a deep breath before leaning over and kissing her on the forehead. "You'll be fine. You have my phone number. Don't hesitate to call me if anything untoward happens, OK?"

She nodded numbly and fingered the 'burner phone' in her coat pocket that he had bought for her the day before. She paused a moment to deliberately steady her nerves before knocking on the door. "It's open. Come in, please," called a muffled voice from within. She looked doubtfully at Sherlock and then threw her shoulders back as she turned the knob and eased the door open. A friendly-looking and quite young academician smiled at her and beckoned her inside. She glanced back and smiled at Sherlock as she slipped into the office and closed the door behind her.

She hadn't even gotten close enough to shake hands with the professor when she noticed who was occupying one of his two visitor chairs along the wall.

"Hello, Veranda."

"Mycroft. What a pleasure." The tone of her voice indicated that seeing him again was anything but.

"And a mordant morning to you, too. Dr.? You may leave now. Out through the laboratory, if you please." Mycroft gestured to the door on the other side of the room and smiled like he had to take a pickaxe to break the ice to do so. After the professor left he got up and carefully sat back down behind the desk. He waved at the chairs along the wall and said, "Do have a seat. You shall be here quite a while."

"Will I?" Veranda was debating the wisdom of simply waltzing back out of the office and trying to chase down Sherlock. She didn't like Mycroft and didn't trust him farther than she could throw him. She couldn't think of a good reason to patiently sit there while he heaped derision and abuse on her just because he thought he could get away with it.

"You will if you want to know what is going on and how you are going to get out of this alive."

"Oh." She took the nearest chair and dragged it closer to the desk before she sat down with a resigned sigh.

Mycroft folded his hands and placed them on the desk blotter as he regarded Veranda stolidly. He noted that she was wearing what appeared to be one of Sherlock's shirts and it vexed him in ways he couldn't quite put a finger on. Sherlock was a grown man, generally, but Mycroft had hoped that the emotional and professional damage done by Irene Adler would be enough to put him off women permanently and in no uncertain terms. He wanted to believe that Sherlock had the sense to not become ensnared yet again, but there was evidence his little brother was a bigger idiot than he had previously considered. It didn't matter either way; he was calling the game off today and the petty feelings of the playing pieces were not relevant.

"How well did you know everyone you worked with at EMF, Veranda?"

"I…um…I was really good friends with Morgan and Carl and I got along with Marc and Elliot…I looked after their son on more than one occasion. We'd hang out together and barbeque sometimes at Carl and Morgan's house. I wasn't close with Gerry and I only met Viktoria once. I mean…they were nice people, but they were in Denver most of the time and his job function didn't really require us to interact besides the odd email. He did a good job, though, and everyone liked him. Why?"

Mycroft held up a single finger in an ominous fashion. "What I am about to tell you cannot leave this room. Ever. If you breathe a word of it to anyone—especially Sherlock—everything we negotiate will be null and void. You can agree and I will make certain that you leave Britain alive and have a substantial chance of remaining so into the future. If you decline? You will be on your own. Which is it?"

Veranda looked at him incredulously. "I don't mean to seem ungrateful, but I'm not buying your pig-in-a-poke Mycroft. You're just the type to offer me a Faustian deal because you think I'm too stupid to realize that you are a sick, sick puppy who gets his jollies from maneuvering people into untenable positions. Your own brother wouldn't turn his back on you—why would I have any faith that you have a single one of my best interests at heart? What, exactly, am I agreeing to? At this point I hardly care why all this crazy crap has happened, so that leaves my life as the only chip on the table…and it's not worth very much, let me tell you."

Mycroft took a pained breath and rubbed his thumbs between his brows before exhaling slowly. "What I am offering you might well be interpreted as a somewhat Pyrrhic proposal; however, I do wish to disabuse you of the notion that _I_ am the villain in this scenario. I have done the best I could and I would appreciate your forbearance because the results have not been ideal. Believe me—I do not enjoy being made a fool of anymore than you do. This entire affair has been a trial and I am looking forward to being able to wash my hands of it."

"What am I agreeing to?" Veranda's expression and tone of voice had softened, but she was still skeptical of Mycroft's intentions.

He stared her down frigidly and said, "Veranda must die."

She whipped around and looked behind her to see who else he was talking to. She turned back to him, squinting suspiciously. "I thought _that_ was what I was trying to avoid?"

Mycroft rolled his eyes. "Don't be absurd. What I am proffering to you is something of an unofficial 'witness-protection program'. You are not currently a target, but the time will come when your utility has been exhausted…"

"And I'll be terminated."

"I see you have adopted my brother's flair for the overly-dramatic."

"Sherlock learned from the best, Mycroft."

He scowled at her and she glared back at him, undaunted. He had just taken a breath to speak when someone knocked on the door and they both jumped.

"Mycroft, I know it's you. May I come in?" It was Sherlock.

Mycroft threw his face into his hands and grumbled something incoherent before he sighed angrily. "Come in, dear brother."

Sherlock stepped swiftly through the doorway and nearly caught his coattail as he shut it without looking. He flashed Veranda a quirk of a smile before he confronted his brother across the large oak desk. "Really, Mycroft? Whatever made you think this sorry bit of masquerade would be sufficient to elude my ratiocination?"

Veranda threw her head back with a laugh and stuck her tongue out. "Jesus Christ, Sherlock. Do you get paid by the syllable?"

Both brothers turned to glower at her. She held her hands up in surrender before putting them over her mouth in a waggish show of being quiet. Then she pretended to find something fascinating about the skirting-board behind Mycroft's chair.

Mycroft rubbed his temples and shook his head. "Can no one accept that I have no nefarious, ulterior motives and that I have acted to ensure everyone's welfare by being recondite?"

"No…" Sherlock began, but was interrupted by Veranda's hysterical giggle.

"Is this some bizarre game between you two? Like verbal Scrabble, but with points for the most arcane argot? Because you two are trying so hard that it's kind of funny. I can keep score if you'd like, however, my life is sort of on the line right now. I'd be indebted to you both if you save the vocabulary Olympics for later so we can get on with…whatever the hell Mycroft has got."

Sherlock made a gesture of resignation and retrieved the second chair from the wall. He hung his coat on one of the hooks by the door and seated himself with quiet disdain. He looked to Veranda, who was still bundled in her jacket, with an expression that embodied 'que sera, sera'.

Mycroft had his eyes closed and looked to be channeling every ounce of Zen that the universe could provide. "I shall begin from the top," he intoned gravely. "The CFO of EMF, Gerry Nilsson, found himself in a financial predicament due to the lavish lifestyle he and his girlfriend, Viktoria Eklund, were enjoying. He decided to make some money on the side by making it known in certain circles that he had access to some highly advanced and very valuable fuel cell technology. A buyer was found, some money traded hands and some information was exchanged."

Veranda was thunderstruck and began to turn slightly green. Her jaw hung slack as she struggled to square this new information with her former opinion of Gerry.

Mycroft continued, "This information passed through several unsavoury intermediaries until it landed on the desk of a man who saw beyond its immediate applications and onto a point where it would interfere with the way he conducted his business."

"Moriarty," said Sherlock.

Mycroft set his steely gaze on Sherlock. "And now you know why I took such great pains to keep you as close to the periphery of this matter as I could."

"Who the hell is Moriarty?" Veranda still looked ill, but now she was queasy and confused.

Sherlock, with uncharacteristic hesitance began, "James Moriarty is a devil…"

He was cut off by Mycroft. "James Moriarty is the yin to Sherlock's yang. He is a criminal mastermind with such an intricately crafted organisational structure that the official apparatus cannot trace any illicit activities back to him. He and Sherlock have an unhealthy obsession with one another that manifests itself as a game of cat-and-mouse in which innocent bystanders sometimes die."

"So why did you involve me at all if you wanted me away from Moriarty?" Veranda silently agreed that Sherlock had a point.

"I had no choice." There was a pang of regret in Mycroft's voice. "Moriarty intuited that such miniaturised fuel cells' most obvious eventual use would be in drones and that drone warfare would supplant conventional armed conflicts if they became practical at long ranges and inexpensive to operate. Drones cannot be bribed and bought; they cannot be persuaded or blackmailed into divulging sensitive information. To a man who capitalises on the vulnerability of people in stressful situations—drones are the beginning of the end of the world as he knows it. They are anathema to one who depends on the weakness of the human will and the meagre moral code of the common man."

"So he decided that rather than take a chance on his vision of the future being flawed, he would obliterate all traces of the company which was poised to deliver such revolutionary technology to the world. This included killing the fortunately small number of people employed by EMF, burning each and every one of their houses to their very foundations, and utterly destroying the headquarters for his hat trick."

"That's insane," murmured Veranda.

"That's Moriarty," said Sherlock.

"He is Sherlock in a funhouse mirror. Moriarty favors the most straightforward methodology which will, nevertheless, yield flamboyant and meretricious results." Mycroft paused for a moment and leaned back in his chair.

Veranda blinked at Mycroft and looked askance at Sherlock. "Like two sides of the same coin? Sherlock's always after the most convoluted solution to the simplest problem."

Sherlock crossed his arms in a huff and Veranda could swear he was pouting.

"Precisely. Unfortunately, Moriarty shares Sherlock's tendency to be beset by boredom and will go to extravagant lengths in order to alleviate it. That is why I was forced to embroil you, Sherlock, in this whole sordid incident. When Moriarty's hit men went to collect their paycheques, he was looking over their proof that the work had been completed. It was then that he saw they had accidently murdered the wrong woman. Not being a man of compassion, he was not concerned that a pregnant woman had died because she bore a striking resemblance to you, Veranda."

"Yeah, that connection's already been made." Veranda looked pained as she briefly recalled looking into Viktoria's body bag at the morgue while the slightly too-eager Molly had hovered nearby. That girl enjoyed her job far too much.

"Your discursive itinerary proved too confusing to Moriarty's accomplices and the protracted wait for your arrival gave him time to think. He had to know that you were something of a hapless flunky to your esteemed colleagues and that as such a low-level associate, it was unlikely that you actually possessed any information of value that could be used to recreate the material he had already incinerated."

Veranda's expression soured as she fought the urge to leap up and bust Mycroft one across the mouth.

He kept talking, obdurately unaware of her rising anger at his thoughtless words. "Moriarty was also cognizant of the fact that Sherlock was suffering a dearth of engaging cases and was growing restless, so he created a ploy that would abrogate both his and Sherlock's boredom, plague me with yet another distraction and, in the end, dupe me into playing a game that could not be won. I would say you were a pawn, Veranda, but in reality…we all were."

Sherlock leaned forward to address Mycroft. "How would he know I was lacking work unless _someone_ told him?"

Mycroft looked cross. "I don't personally bother to monitor your comings and goings, Sherlock. And I only receive a report when…" He wrinkled his nose in annoyance. "…when you're getting too close to something I would rather you not. What you do to keep yourself entertained is not my concern. I would most certainly not disclose such information to Moriarty. He could have your flat bugged for all I know—I am not your claviger. I would suggest you accept some accountability if your archenemy seems to have exceptionally detailed knowledge of your enterprise."

Veranda snickered and the brothers scowled at her. She shrugged and said, "That makes you the only person I know with an archenemy. It's funny. You should go buy a cape or something. Maybe get a secret hideout."

"Who's to say I don't?" Sherlock didn't sound like he was joking. Veranda raised her eyebrows and decided to stay quiet from here on out.

"Shall I continue?" Mycroft didn't wait for any acknowledgement. "Moriarty was, of course, very aware of the series of catastrophes you caused by your involvement with Ms. Adler." Veranda gave Sherlock a very pointed side-eye and he was just as obviously ignoring her.

Mycroft looked from one to the other as he saw his fears confirmed. He took a deep breath and kept on, "He was also quite well-versed in what had happened at Baskerville and how you abused my security clearance to break into a secure research facility—_so you could chase a rabbit_!" His sudden animation was brief, but startling to his audience.

Sherlock sat up and tried to defend himself. "Baskerville was not…"

"I don't care! I'm still trying to explain to several of my peers how you are not a major threat to British national security, Sherlock. I would appreciate if you would pay attention when I am castigating you!"

Veranda's mouth got ahead of her brain. "The Lagomorph of Baskerville?"

The Holmes yelled in unison, "Shut up!"

She slumped for a second and then sat up straight. "I don't like your tone of voice, you two. Where is this all going?"

Mycroft flared his nostrils and calmly refolded his hands on the desk before him. "The point to all of this is that James Moriarty is keenly aware of the fact my brother is a loose cannon and prone to causing nearly as much trouble as he prevents. He also knows that Sherlock has a certain allure, especially to the female half of the species, but is tragically naïve in regard to his…_charms_. Thus, when he found himself with a spare woman of only tangential importance to his immediate designs, he saw an opportunity to make merry with his favorite toys and there would be essentially no chance of repercussions. I imagine he cackled at some point."

Sherlock sat, impassive, with only a slight hint of irritation creasing his brow.

"Moriarty called me, hours before the bodies in the van would have been discovered, confident that there was no way to trace the killings back to him and his people. He said that he had bought everything Mr. Nilsson had made available and that he could start producing the fuel cells in just a few weeks once all the data was hacked and collated from the computers of the murder victims. He indicated that there was one computer missing and that although it contained a fairly minor piece of the process, it would nevertheless be very nice to have. He had experienced a sudden pang of guilt, in addition to realising he had no interest in becoming a manufacturing baron; however, it would be a shame to let this radical technology go to waste so he proposed a deal: If I would send Sherlock to get the woman from EMF and see that she remained uninjured, he would shortly hand everything over to me to do with as I saw fit."

"Moriarty described it as a turn-key operation that could easily be made into a black project so no one would ever know that it had been obtained by illegitimate means and had several murders attached to it. It would be an amazing coup for the British government and everything had already been neatly laundered. The dirty work had been completed and could not be undone, so there was no crisis of conscience necessary."

"Moriarty is incapable of regret," Sherlock said coldly.

"I know that," Mycroft spat. "I also know that he no functional sense of altruism. There had to be more to it, but I could not take that chance. I had to see if there was something to his machinations."

"You were willing to take all of our hard work—soaked with blood—including the blood of an unborn child—and skip off into the sunset whistling a jolly tune because all the nasty wet-work had already been taken care of? You slimy mother-fu…gah!" Veranda had already launched out of her chair and Sherlock only caught her around the waist because he had been waiting for her to lose her composure.

"Let go of me! I will kill him and I will stand on his mangled corpse and I will howl to the moon! God dammit! Sherlock!" She was struggling wildly, but there was no way she was going to get away from him.

He bent down to her ear, "Need I remind you that Mycroft _is_ my brother? He didn't kill anyone…and if the option was Moriarty savoring the fruits of your labors and gloating over the lengths he went to get it…Mycroft is the lesser evil." He shifted his stance slightly so the restraint became more of a hug and he gently nuzzled the side of her neck, an impish glint in his eye as he observed Mycroft's look of disgust.

"Goddammit! God damn everything! Everyone! So this psychotic little prick has everyone dancing on a string because he's just the worst?" Veranda sagged back against Sherlock's chest, her anger boiled off with her loss of faith in humanity.

"After a fashion," stated Mycroft. "The fact remains that the initial resource investment was low and the potential dividends were great." Sherlock glared at Mycroft over Veranda's shoulder before tugging her backwards and encouraging her sit back down. They both took their seats and Mycroft continued, "I dispatched John to Dublin and Sherlock to Heathrow. Once I found out what flight you had finally boarded, I joined him in order to provide some additional impetus should you not be amenable to his offer of accommodation and assistance. I had your phone disabled and concocted a story that contained enough verisimilitude Sherlock would accept it at face value and his inevitable investigation would not uncover a fraction of the truth."

"I set people about discovering everything that could be found about EMF and their still-confidential technology. I'm afraid Sherlock gave me your hard drive, Veranda, and swapped it with a facsimile. I would like to compliment and possibly hire the person who wrote the encryption software—our best people have yet to break into it."

"He's dead." Veranda had taken on a distinctly zombie-like appearance herself.

"Oh. How unfortunate. Regardless, by Saturday morning I had come to the conclusion that Moriarty was bluffing—completely and utterly. He had nothing of any conceivable use to anyone and no apparent motivation to spare you other than to know that Sherlock was cooped up with a strange woman in his flat for several days."

Sherlock held his hand up. "So that little escapade with the bicyclist…"

"Was a sham. You were never in any danger. It was a contrivance to spice up a story that, to him, had insufficient drama. He informed me of what had taken place so I called John to have him check up on you two. I wanted to be certain that his little set-piece had no unintended consequences."

"And I thought you two were messed up. What is going on in that guy's beady little mind? Why would he do any of this? Why would he care?" Veranda was puzzled beyond belief.

Sherlock shrugged. "Why does Moriarty do anything?"

"Why don't you stop him?" she asked accusingly.

Mycroft was cross again. "If you think we haven't been trying, then you are sadly mistaken. He has made an entire career out of being a slippery eel. I decided that I had quite enough of his chicanery and I wanted to end it before anything else embarrassing or ruinously expensive could happen. I wanted Sherlock to finish this adventure as uninformed as he had been at the beginning so I had to separate him from John and get him out of London, where he feels pressure to perform his 'consulting detective' act."

Sherlock resumed pouting.

"I thought a quiet little seaside town would be a good backdrop for a bloody death that I wanted to go unnoticed by as many people as possible. Bad for tourism, you see? There would be few questions asked, especially as the body would never arrive at the local morgue—shipped instead to Bart's Hospital where a facile Molly would do a thorough post-mortem on a non-existent corpse. The victim would then go on to live a full life somewhere else—somewhere far from Moriarty, far from Sherlock and far from me. I could tie it all up with a tidy little bow and no one would be the wiser. Moriarty would lose his sway over me, Sherlock would be innocent of the part he played in the charade and I could get back to my work without having a seventh…eighth…body on my soil."

"You discount my abilities at your own peril Mycroft," Sherlock said smugly.

"That is neither here nor there," retorted his elder brother. "The damage is done, but it is minor…because you will not interfere. Do you understand me? Barring a few minor details, the plan is in place. Veranda will be 'murdered' in a fashion befitting that of all EMF employees and she will leave the country under an assumed name. I will provide her with all that she needs to begin life as a new person and then she will be free to carry on. She can decline, but I think she can also conclude how that course of action will end."

Veranda had been slowly sinking down in her chair until she had nearly submerged back into her coat collar as she stared vacantly at the floor. She could take Mycroft's offer and get the hell away from all the insanity or she could try to go it on her own, but there was really nothing from her old life worth saving—there was nothing from her old life left. There was only Sherlock and she wasn't foolish enough to think that they had a future. Hell, they hadn't even slept together yet. This was actually the best possible scenario for someone in her situation. She'd been running from her past for the last several decades and this was the ultimate turning over of a new leaf. It wasn't even a real decision because that implied there were legitimate alternatives; saying 'yes' to Mycroft was the only rational path forward.

"I'll go," she said in a barely audible voice.

"Splendid!" Mycroft exclaimed and jumped to his feet. I'll be on my way and see that the last few particulars are put to order. You two stay here for now. I'll call you when you may leave the campus. It may take a day or two to iron out the minutiae, but I'll be certain to contact you the instant we have a 'go'. Ta ta."

Veranda looked up at him with a hollow expression. She still couldn't quite accept the import of what was about to happen to her. "Won't Dr. Tarr want his office back?"

"Oh, there is no Dr. Tarr," Mycroft said brightly. "He was just someone I hired from the corridor. 20£ will buy a lot of cooperation from the average university student. Cheerio!" With that he fairly strutted out of the office, grabbing his umbrella along the way and slamming the door behind him.

"I hate your brother."

"You are but one of many."

**AN: I was originally going to apologise for my 'deus ex Moriarty' plotline, but in the end I think it fit the raging stupidity and pointlessness of the rest of the story very well. TBH, it isn't much more ridiculous than the paper-thin plots and character motivations that have been foisted on the unsuspecting viewers of the show by the scriptwriters. BBC Sherlock, I love you—but you cray-cray.**

**And yes—I finally discovered the keyboard shortcut for the em-dash. Yay me.**


	13. If Brevity Is The Soul Of Wit

At first the minutes tiptoed away in strained silence, but eventually the weight of all that was going unsaid became too much for Veranda to bear. "Who was Ms. Adler? She asked impudently." _Smart-alec to the end._

Sherlock looked up from his phone and paused to carefully consider his words. "Ms. Adler—Ms. Irene Adler—was…not a client. She was a case. To be honest? She was a character from a case that Mycroft assigned me some months ago. I would use the word 'character' in quotes because she is, or rather was, someone larger than life and with a reputation larger still. Mycroft likes to remind me of her because she instigated a situation in which I placed unearned trust in the wrong people, deduced far too much, _said_ far too much and generally acted like an imbecile; the end result being the failure of a sophisticated multi-faceted plot to foil a terrorist organisation."

"So, you act like an idiot because of some girl and the terrorists win?"

"The terrorists won that _round_. Normally my actions do not have that sort of significance, but that one time they unfortunately did. At any rate, she is dead now so you'll have no competition from her." Sherlock was such an accomplished liar that Veranda had no hope of ferreting out his untruth.

"Dead? How convenient. What happened?"

"You do not carry yourself as she did and not make a number of sworn enemies."

"But she reduced you to a puddle of slobber, didn't she?"

"No. She made a monkey of both me and Mycroft. She was a ruthless schemer and I did not see her for what she was until it was too late. She used me to do her intellectual heavy-lifting and then renounced me when I was no longer useful to her. I harbor no affection for her memory, Veranda." Lying through his teeth, he was.

"Fair enough. So what about the 'Lagomorph of Baskerville'?"

"It was not about a rabbit. OK, not exclusively—although it did involve one. A glow-in-the-dark bunny named Bluebell, to be precise."

"Do go on. I've got nothing but time, Sherlock."

He rolled his eyes and pocketed his phone. "A gentleman came to see John and me because he was having terrible…delusions. He had a traumatic childhood and his therapist was attempting to help him, but inadvertently made his mental state worse. In the end he was the victim of someone from his past who was trying, and generally succeeding, to drive him insane. Part of the investigation did require me to gain access to a closely-guarded government compound which Mycroft's unrestricted credentials facilitated. John's former military experience also proved helpful in perpetrating our ruse."

"What? Like a badge or a swipe-card? Mycroft just loans you his ID? You two don't look anything alike."

"Ident cards are not known for their detailed and accurate photographic standards. And I did borrow his badge, although it was without his knowledge or consent."

"You stole it."

"I pick-pocketed him, as I have on several occasions. I do the same to Lestrade. There's no telling when having an official's papers will make my job inestimably easier. I like to keep in practice so I remain adroit at sleight-of-hand. How do you think I got your hard drive away from you without you noticing?"

"I wasn't guarding it very carefully."

"Not at all, if I am to be truthful. It was no challenge."

"It didn't do you any good."

"I will concede that, but the balance of probability was actually in our favour." His faint smile guttered out quickly.

"So what about the green, glowing, killer rabbit of Caerbannog?" She smirked ruefully at her own joke.

"What?"

"Bluebell!"

"Oh—Bluebell the bioluminescent bunny. It was just an experimental animal that followed a scientist home. Turned out to be nothing."

"How does one not notice that their pet rabbit is glowing in the dark?"

"One doesn't. One's daughter does. One's daughter also notices when said beloved pet goes missing under mysterious circumstances. This precocious child then emails the world's only consulting detective through his heavily trafficked website in order to hopefully discover the whereabouts of the former hutch-dweller. This detective then, in the course of another investigation, discovers the unhappy fate of the aforementioned Bluebell and gives the scientist-at-fault the option to speak with her daughter directly or suffer the consequences when he tells the child, as tactlessly as possible, exactly what happened to her fluffy little friend."

"Oh, God. Sherlock! Would you really scar a little kid like that just to be a bastard?"

"It is better to start them early, Veranda. This world is nothing but pain and disappointment. Do you not think so?"

"You don't come down on children like that! Let them preserve their illusions…at least for a little while." She shook her head and made a face. "Why does Molly know you so well? Do you have a club card to the morgue?"

"I…experiment…a lot. I find I need esoteric information for some of my pursuits and it often has not been thoroughly documented or, indeed, researched at all. As a good deal of my work involves unsolved deaths and murders, I find myself requiring _material_ upon which to perform tests—and Molly is a tractable supplier of such items, as well as graciously allowing me admission to the morgue when inspiration strikes. John has made repeated and strident protests against my storing certain objects and substances in the flat, so I find it less taxing when I go straight to the source."

"She's a resurrection woman."

"No. She is patient and willing to overlook my…indiscretions…with her charges." He looked sidelong at Veranda as he calculated the wisdom of his next potential statement, but ultimately decided there was little point in being circumspect. "She also harbours a sincere and apparently unshakeable interest in me as a romantic partner. I believe she is under the regrettable impression that if she is sufficiently longanimous then her abiding affection for me will someday be reciprocated. She has perhaps read too many romance novels."

"You're stringing her along. Using her because she lets you do anything you want."

"I don't believe I have given her undue substantiation for her unfortunate inclination. I do exploit her predisposition toward me in order to secure a connexion to my study subjects. I consider her a valuable resource and a close associate. I feel I can trust her unconditionally, which is more than I can say for nearly everyone else in my life."

"You've friend-zoned the poor girl and haven't bothered to tell her yet."

"Molly is a very kind and—what is the word? Sweet? She's a kind and sweet woman whom I'm certain will make a lovely partner for some other man. In my estimation she is too meek and complaisant; I would not have the wherewithal to avoid overpowering her in every facet of her life. It would be too easy for her to lose herself in a relationship with me and I would not even notice what I was doing to her. It would be unfair to place her in such a predicament with only one foregone and painful outcome. Perhaps I should be telling this to her…"

"I'm glad you recognize that, Sherlock." She nodded sagely and then looked at him sharply with narrowed eyes. "What about the cat-and-mouse game where people accidently end up dead? Mycroft had to be hyperbolizing—that doesn't happen in real life. Unless you guys are all members of a cult or a gang and I just haven't noticed yet."

The muscles along Sherlock's jaw twitched a couple of times before he replied, "There has only been one situation where there was some collateral damage—and it wasn't my fault. I fulfilled my obligations, yet Moriarty still felt threatened and decided to utilise his failsafe anyway."

"How many folks were 'collateral damage', Sherlock?" Veranda was looking greenish again.

"About a dozen. It could have been much worse." His voice was as flat and hollow as his expression.

"I bet that's reassuring to the families of the people who got caught in the crossfire."

"You needn't be so trenchant. I'm well aware that what happened might be considered tragic and avoidable. Perhaps I could have handled the situation differently, but I am not certain that Moriarty would not have been provoked just the same. He is dangerously unstable and unpredictable." He paused and stared at the floor for a moment. "He is the crux of many, many other deaths—primarily people perish after their transactions with him are complete. Unfortunately, it is not unusual for there to be one or two more bodies adjacent to the instigator. However, I am confident that there remains only the one incident where truly innocent people died because they came between Moriarty and me during the course of our…business. And I sincerely believe I should not be held culpable in that situation either."

Veranda rubbed her eyes tiredly. "Whatever gets you through the night, I guess."

"Why should I feel guilt?" he asked bitterly. "People die every day, Veranda. Whether in a bona fide accident, by their own hand, a cold-blooded murder or as the logical conclusion to their own designs—it doesn't matter to me. I am only interested in the actions and interactions which culminated in the body on the slab and if the ledger does not balance then I will find the inconsistencies and do my best to restore order. I live only to solve the mystery and I care not a fig for the moral implications that others are continually attempting to foist on my occupation."

"Christ, Sherlock. This really is nothing but a game to you, isn't it?" She looked like she was about to actively start banging her head on the desk.

"Why would it be anything but? It's elementary, Veranda. Caring is not an advantage, so I choose to remain a disinterested observer and remove myself from the intrigues and imbroglios of the seething masses. And I am not obligated to assume blame for that which I am not responsible! Would you incriminate me in the deaths of your former coworkers?"

"No. It all happened before you were involved. I don't think I can even pin it partially on Mycroft, really. It was all that Moriarty jackass. Well…after Gerry started it, I guess."

"Precisely. I cannot and do not waste the effort in attempting to out-think and outmaneuver a madman. Do not confuse that with my sincere desire to get ahead of him—just once, even—so that he might reconsider trifling with me, if no one else."

She flapped her hands at him mockingly. "With that attitude, maybe it's a good thing you don't have a cape. People might get confused."

"Heroes don't exist. And you should realise by now that if they did, I would most certainly not be one."

"Christ Almighty! You're just above it all, aren't you? A fantastical creature of pure intellect—sent to save the world from itself!"

"Are you jealous? Because I can see and do things which would reduce a normal person to a quivering, useless wreck? Would it benefit anyone, let alone society at large, if I were to allow my base, human irrationality to dominate and subsume my intellect? What would it accomplish? Would you have the criminals and cretins in this world conducting their affairs unopposed so that I might _conform_? Why are you trying to force me into a box in which I do not—cannot—and never will—fit in?" He was half out of his chair by the end and had to visibly make himself to sit back down even though he was radiating fury.

"Goddammit Sherlock! I'm not trying to tell you that you're wrong or that you have to change. I'm just saying that you make things awfully difficult for yourself and if you spent more time thinking about why you do what you do then you might find an easier path to follow. Just—Goddammit!" Veranda squeezed her eyes shut and briefly threw her face into her hands. She sat back up and shook her head accusingly. "Goddammit! Every once in a while I swear I see something in you that isn't cold, calculating and callous…and then, poof! It's like staring into the abyss."

"Oh, come off it _already_! I expect these histrionics from John—maudlin and misguided _John_—but you aren't like that at all! You know what I am as surely as you know yourself!"

"And that means I know you aren't an apathetic, soulless monster! Moriarty's reign of terror bothers you and you can't just keep stuffing all of that pain and anguish into the closet! Someday it's all going to fall out on your head!"

"Has it ever occurred to you that I genuinely don't _need_ to feel anything? I can divorce myself from unnecessary and counterproductive emotions which will only impede my progress. I don't need to 'stuff' that which never affects me in the first place!"

"Has it ever occurred to you that you are lying to yourself when you think that? You're a bit of a Machiavellian who finds it easy to be manipulative and you obviously believe the ends justify the means, but you aren't remotely psychopathic. Your emotions and your empathy are there, but they're more than a little twisted."

"Oh, God. Don't start that with me! Has John been coaching you? Because this is the exact same drivel that he has attempted to burden me with in the past!"

"Have you ever considered he might be right? That I might be right? That we speak the truth and that it's something you don't only need to _hear_, but should _heed_ as well?"

Sherlock threw himself back in his chair and groaned theatrically.

"Listen to me! You don't have Alexithymia—if you did, you wouldn't be half the person you are. Maybe you're pretty good at controlling your emotions most of the time, but they are still there and denying them doesn't make them all go away just because they're inconvenient."

She growled quietly and ground the heels of her hands into her temples. "I used to think I didn't have emotions because I never seemed to feel what other people felt. I was _wrong_, but it took me a long time to figure it all out. I _feel_—I feel strongly—but some of my emotions ended up being substitutions with what I could actually understand. It's part of why I was so very, very angry when I was younger. I had all these _things_ inside me that I couldn't put a name to and had no useful way of dealing with, so I lashed out in confusion and frustration. Once I realized that I wasn't empty and broken then I could begin the process of mapping what I did feel and trying to make my inner dialog correspond to a more normative model. It's a bit like pointers in a computer program—it isn't the object itself, but instead a representative quantity that can be used interchangeably."

Sherlock was looking at her like she had lobsters coming out of her ears. "Ok, Sherlock…what is one thing you do that John complains about the most?"

His eyebrows drew together briefly in thought before he quietly ventured, "That I keep medical specimens in the refrigerator with our food. Mrs. Hudson hates it too."

Veranda sighed heavily. "The one _abstract_ thing you do—an intellectual behavior."

He brightened slightly, "Oh, that's easy! I'm a drama queen…even though he's usually the one who is in a lather."

"Do you think he's right?"

"Well, he's entitled to his opinion."

Veranda cleared her throat and looked unimpressed with his attempts at evading the question.

Sherlock was studying his shoelaces carefully as he muttered, "Perhaps. Mycroft is often keen to make the same accusation."

"You are loath to admit it, but you do live for attention. You want your place in the limelight and you don't much care how you get it…but a lot of it is learned behavior. When you were young you thought you were pulling a rabbit out of a hat, but everyone stared at you like you were holding roadkill. You told a really clever joke, but no one got the punch line. And, much like a struggling comedian, you didn't gain many fans when you explained in excruciating detail what made your joke so funny. You've been amping up your act for years, but you're performing for an audience you can never win over so now you take perverse pleasure in making people squirm. You're the tree falling in the forest, but with no one to hear you—you're afraid you don't make a sound. You're still chasing validation and that's something you have to unlearn."

Sherlock looked pensive and glanced briefly toward the door before muttering, "Appreciation! Applause! At long last the spotlight. That's the frailty of genius—it needs an audience."

"Huh?"

"I'm getting a bit of déjà vu, Veranda. I've had this conversation before."

"With whom?"

"John."

"In reference to?"

"A serial killer."

"Oh." Veranda was temporarily silenced, but quickly perked up. "But really, that makes my point…wanting attention is neither good nor bad. It's what you do to get it that'll be judged. 'There is nothing is either good or bad, but thinking makes it so.'"

"And Hamlet takes the stage again…"

"Gah. Really?" She loured at him.

"I'm sorry to have interrupted. Please, continue."

"Hrmmph." She waved her hands around in an encompassing gesture. "Right or wrong—good and evil, too—they're mutable concepts because, by and large, they're all just societal constructs used to enforce order in a community. But they can and do change over time, depending on who needs to be defined as the enemy in order to enforce the dogma du jour. It's part of the human condition to seek out and capitalize on the differences of those around us so we may form our various tribes and claim the moral high ground. It's all just shorthand for othering people because it's awfully hard to hate someone for no apparent reason if you know they're just like you. Eccentrics and iconoclasts like us have gotten all sorts of unpleasant labels over the centuries because we rather failed to assimilate into the western convention of 'normal'."

Sherlock began rubbing his temples and wondering how their tetchy discussion had devolved into an impromptu anthropological lecture.

She sighed heavily and slumped in her chair. "I think the biggest lie I've ever been told is that there is such a thing as 'normal'. It's a false ideal and it pains me to see people hurting themselves to conform to a set of standards that lose all their meaning when taken out of context."

After she sat quietly for a minute or so Sherlock wondered if she—just maybe—_might_ be finished. Instead she got up and plopped down in the leather seat behind the desk, where she spun it around a couple of times. "I forgot what I was talking about." She spun a third and a fourth time. "I was lecturing you again, wasn't I?"

Sherlock nodded, his expression mildly disgruntled.

She squinted at him. "And you're not going to give me any hints are you?"

He pressed his lips together grimly and shook his head.

"Eh. I don't blame you." She gazed thoughtfully at the wall of half-empty bookcases and the scattered boxes on the floor, full of books yet-to-be shelved. She brightened, "Oh, I remember! Labels! The good and bad of labels! I'm not much for living with mine—I consider myself to be more than the sum of my dysfunctions. I make my way in this world quite successfully and that's all that counts. My dozens of coping strategies don't devalue my achievements."

She wheeled the chair around to the corner of the desk and, with her hands clasped in her lap, leaned forward to confront Sherlock. "Now, you…you think you picked your own label and you use it as a warning, but you're just being passive aggressive. It's their own damn fault they get tangled up with you because they ought to have known better. But really? It isn't helping you or anyone—and you should stop."

She reclined in the chair, making it creak unhappily and she kicked her feet up on the desk as she glared at him with a defiant smirk. He chose to not dignify her taunting with a retort.

Crossing her arms with a fractious scowl that promptly became an eye roll and a silent plea to the heavens for patience, she snorted and put her feet back on the floor. Addressing him in a serious tone, "My point—and I do have one—is that actions can always end up with different labels, but the essence of the person will remain unchanged. I just want you to _know_ in your heart-of-hearts, Sherlock—to really, truly understand—that this…" She waved theatrically around the office. "…is not who you _are_. This may be your job, it may be your public persona and it may be what you use to shield your real self from the world, but it isn't _you_. Look at me, Sherlock, and tell me…what are you?"

"What?" He was caught quite unawares by what appeared to be a violent change in subject and had no ready quip in response to her patently ridiculous question.

"What are you? Not who…what."

"I…I'm a private detective."

"And…?"

"I'm afraid you've lost me."

"Are you a thief?"

"No."

"Mycroft and Lestrade might beg to differ with you."

"OK. Sometimes. I suppose by that measure then I am also an opportunistic burglar."

"And you're a liar."

"When required," he said without unclenching his teeth.

"And a merciless manipulator."

"When expedient." He rubbed his temples in frustration. "Look, Veranda, I know what you're getting at and I'm not having it. I may work with_ the angels_, but don't think for an instant that I _am_ one of them."

"And that right there is the fulcrum upon which I have hinged my entire conceit. You keep using loaded language—hero, angel—knowing damn well that it clouds people's perception of you and it allows you to duck behind the scrim without being seen. But you aren't just hiding from everyone else. You're desperately afraid of who you really are and what it would mean if you accepted the truth."

Quietly and without inflection he asked, "Am I a bad man?"

"No. And that's part of what scares you so much. It would be simple if you were someone like Moriarty—nothing but an agent of chaos. You do have an amoral streak a mile wide and you love the freedom it gives you to do as you will and damn the consequences. However, the farther along you get…you're beginning to realize that it's a dangerous attitude when find yourself accepting illegal acts as a normal course of business. You aren't a casual malefactor."

"Then what am I?"

"Who, Sherlock. _Who are you_?"

"Now you're just trying to give me a headache."

"No! You're the one with a brain the size of a planet! So think! When you look in the mirror, Sherlock, who do you see?"

"I see a man who has had quite enough of your nonsense."

"Goddammit, Sherlock. 'Hell is other people.'"

"That's the first thing you've said to make sense in the last half hour!"

"No! Don't be so shallow! As human beings, we can't really judge ourselves. All that we are—good, bad and indifferent—is shown in the people around us and what they reflect back. No fully realized person can exist in a vacuum. In order to form an honest opinion about ourselves—who we truly are—we have to process that through other people because humans are psychologically incapable of knowing themselves. You steal things, but you aren't a thief…you work for justice, but you aren't a hero. You conflate your actions with the person you define yourself as."

"What else I am supposed to do?" He sounded like he'd finally reached the end of his tether. "This is why I don't care!"

"But you do care!"

"Where do you get that preposterous idea?" he snarled.

"You wouldn't be trying to change if you didn't care."

"How am I changing?"

"Like I said, I see flashes of a better man inside you. The light of recognition flickers in your eyes when you know you've said something really hurtful or inappropriate. The fact you know you need to explain yourself to Molly rather than simply ignoring her and hoping she'll return the favor. And ultimately? Because you've sat there—relatively patiently—for days now…and listened to me. Most people would have written me off as having escaped from the mental ward, but you have tried to parse my rambling and nigh-incoherent tirades. I flatter myself to think you might be able to gain something from them."

Sherlock sat quietly and wouldn't meet her eyes.

She held her hands out to him like she was holding the world between them. "Who you really are is all that matters and, unfortunately, the only gauge we have for that is seeing the effect you have on other people. It is only by doing better by those whose lives we influence…that we can judge ourselves fairly and decide whether we are acting as 'good' people."

Looking at him with sympathetic sorrow, she sighed and put her hands down on her knees. "And that brings me around to what you are so very, very afraid of. You aren't scared of being evil...you're concerned that you're _not_. Because being a 'good' person brings with it baggage—ambiguity and responsibility. It's a lot easier to hurt people when you can say that it was their fault for putting themselves there in the first place. I bet you Moriarty has no compunction about all the bodies that pile up around him because—hey, they brought it on themselves. Nothing more than personal responsibility, people."

She rocked back in the chair, causing it to squawk in protest. "Jesus Christ! You'd think the engineering department could scare up some oil." She wiggled around in her seat to a chorus of squeaks and groans. "Amateurs. Anyway—when you dismiss your worst tendencies as being those of a 'high-functioning sociopath', you're doing the same thing as your dearly-beloved arch-nemesis—albeit on a more modest scale. But you know that you're not like him and that you couldn't live with yourself if you were only known by your trail of dead. Regardless of how frightening the prospect is, you understand that you aren't 'bad' or 'evil' or anything else of the sort. You're a damaged and confused young man on a journey to a better place."

The chair screeched yet again, louder than ever. "Holy cats!" she exclaimed. She got up and began struggling to flip the button-tufted leather and metal monstrosity over, but it was too heavy and awkward for her. "Some help here, please?" She waved emphatically at the chair but Sherlock just stared at her, uncomprehending, like she was speaking Chinese. She gave up and sat heavily on the edge of the desk as she watched him. He had to be thinking—this was Sherlock, after all—but he had such a vacant look on his face she could almost hear an old dial-up modem handshake wailing in the background as he struggled to connect to his mental bulletin board.

She snapped her fingers to get his attention and he blinked slowly at her. When she was fairly confident he had returned to earth she said, "Kid...Sherlock…I just want you to be happy, but it's going to take work on your end. People have molly-coddled you your whole life—they've let you run wild and never called you out. They treat you like you're a puppy chewing on their slippers and just indulgently watch you misbehave, but you're too Goddamned old to still be acting like this. It wasn't cute when you were 5 and it sure as hell ain't cute now you're 35."

His brows furrowed and his eyes were hard. _She has a lot of nerve, this woman_.

She got up and stood in front of him using a posture she had once heard described as a 'supplicating brontosaurus'—calm and gently pleading, but relentlessly patient and with a slight hint of 'don't mess with me'—because it had gotten her results for most of her adult life. "Dear, you have to give up on your disclaimer. People shouldn't have to sign a waiver to be your friend and just accept you telling them 'I told you so' after you treat them like dirt. You need to not be a jerk in the first place. It's a lot of work, Sherlock, but I can't tell you how much better off you'll be after you invest the effort. I did it—and you can too."

He sat back in his chair as he looked up at her. She was imploring him to alter everything he imagined himself to be even as she claimed that it wasn't change per se but rather evolution. He stared at her levelly and deliberately unfolded his arms to open up his body language before asking, "Where do you want the chair?"


End file.
